Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

-----we gave an increase in child benefit of €32 per month year on year.

We gave the highest increases in old age pensions and, again, shamed people like Proinsias De Rossa, the so-called socialist, in the increases that we gave. The party opposite manufactured a surplus in the year it left office to make the situation look good, but the reality is it ran deficits and gave very little when it was in Government. It gave very little to the poor people of this country and the less well-off, and its record stands for itself.

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