Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I think I have made the point. The €25 million is for paying people between now and the end of the year. That is what we are looking for. Without labouring the point, the majority of those people are people who will have very small pensions for the rest of their lives.

There is a political point here too. This is about alternatives. If people put forward alternatives, the Government will look at those, but it is about the totality of those alternatives, not just parts of them put forward on the basis of the Government taking a decision. Many people will be interested in hearing the Deputy's view that Sinn Féin would abolish the universal social charge, which would have an effect on all of these pensioners. However, they would like to know how we would pay for that. In the round, people will ultimately be caught out on such questions.

People are much more clever than the Deputy is allowing. They know that these adjustments have to be made and they also know that commitments given by Opposition parties, like the universal social charge affecting all pensioners, were tested against available resources.