Kitty HollandThe Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mr Brennan, has said he is already engaged in a "battle" with the Department of Finance to get money for significant social welfare increases in the Budget.
He warned that he will be very upset if he is not allocated the extra resources.
"I will be very upset if I cannot deliver, and one thing they know around here is not to make me upset," he said in an interview with The Irish Times yesterday.
The Minister vowed that all his Department's commitments, due to be met this year, will be met.
This will mean an increase in child benefit of €20 a month and increases in the lowest rates of social welfare of €14-€15 a week.
In his first in-depth interview since being appointed to his new portfolio, Mr Brennan said he was seeking "substantial increases" on the €640 million package delivered by his predecessor, Ms Mary Coughlan, in Budget 2004.
"The battle has just begun. I had a long meeting with the Minister for Finance the other day. I went to see him looking for a substantial increase.
"I do need a substantial increase on last year's figure if we are to meet the commitments in Sustaining Progress and the Programme for Government, and the commitments we discussed in Inchydoney. My job is to arrive at a figure out of the overall."
He said the lowest social welfare payments, which are currently €134.80 a week, would need to increase by about €14.
The Government, in the Sustaining Progress document, is committed to increasing child benefit from €131 a month to €149 for the first and second child, and from €165 to €185 for third and subsequent children.
"That will be met," he said yesterday. The State pension, which amounts to about €8,000 a year, was not enough, he said.
"I've got to do better. And I've got to get the money. I've got to make it clear to Cabinet and to Government that we can't, on the one hand, be the best performing economy and pay our pensioners €8,000 per annum."
Asked if he felt Ireland had been as socially successful in the past decade as it had been economically, he said: "I think it's clear that if you look at the fruits of that economic success story, it has not been shared in as equitable a way as it should be."
Gaps had to be closed and this would require greater intervention by the State. Economic success on its own would not eliminate deprivation.
"The Americans call it the 'trickle-down' effect. It doesn't work. The Government has to intervene to make it trickle down. It won't on its own, some of it will, but it might not hit the target."
Poverty was not an inevitable aspect of a successful economy.
"I think there will always be a difference between the people at the bottom and the people at the top, but I don't think poverty is inevitable. It is the State's duty not to allow poverty, to get in and make growth work for everyone."
One change he wants to effect is the image of Social Welfare. A benefit from his Department was not charity, but an enabling entitlement, he said.
"This is not a great arm of the State that just writes cheques. It's there to serve you, help you, and enable you. Whatever you're getting from this Department, it's not a handout, or a charity."
He particularly wants to examine ways of ending the situations where people are effectively prevented from taking up work or training schemes because they would lose entitlements.
On the so-called "Savage Sixteen" cuts introduced by Ms Coughlan last year, he said he would be able to say in about two weeks which, if any, would be amended or rescinded.
He has asked his officials "to examine and justify them" and in particular to look at the dietary, creche and rent supplement cuts.
"I stand over what I said. If there is hardship there, we will rescind it."