Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have acknowledged the number of increases that have been made but in many cases they represent a return of what was taken away by the present Government in the first place, but I will leave that to one side. Fianna Fáil's pre-budget submission indicated that it would implement considerably higher expenditure on social welfare and provide for less in terms of tax concessions than ultimately proved to be the case, but that was just our position and how we wanted to balance it. I refer the Minister of State to the statement made in the Dáil by his colleague the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, when she said that the €3 pension increase was an above-inflation increase. Would Deputy Humphreys agree that it is not an above-inflation increase and that it is does not take inflation or projected inflation into account?