Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputies points are well made. In the course of the budget negotiations my efforts were initially aimed at ensuring that there would be a €5 increase in the basic maximum payments for all recipients and that this would be the case across the board. That was my first priority. My second priority was that the increase would be €5. My third priority was that it would be put in place as early as possible. I got my way on the first two points but I struggled to get my way on the third point.

There was talk of May and June. We managed to push it back. With the assistance of the party opposite, we managed to keep bringing it back to an earlier date. Early March was the date we agreed. Of course I would have preferred for the date to be 1 January, but I do not have €60 million to do that. The only way to create the €60 million necessary would be to exclude one group - potentially, jobseekers, and I had no wish to do that - or else pay less than €5, for example, €3.80 or €4, and I had no wish to do that either.

Certainly, I will make the submission for the budget next year on the basis that we will revert to 1 January as the normal day for such payments. Before that became the norm, it was not the norm. Throughout the 1990s when we had budgets in October, it was regular for increases not to come into effect until March, April or even May. These would have included McCreevy budgets, for example. It is not unprecedented. In this budget, as in previous budgets, certain measures come in at different times of the year. The first-time buyer incentive is being backdated to July for a particular reason. Other measures, such as the child care subsidy, are not coming into effect until September. It is not unprecedented historically nor is it entirely unusual in the context of this budget and social welfare package.