Ray Butler (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I have spoken to the Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan, and hopefully the pressure of what I said on this will come to bear on him, and it would be great if the Minister spoke to him as well on this.

A lady who came to my constituency office recently advised me that she was working and earning €400 a week, her husband who was self-employed had got sick, they had two children and a mortgage of €1,600 a month, and her husband on being assessed for social welfare benefit was given a payment of €1.80 per week. If the new stamp proposed in the Mangan report was in place, that gentleman would be entitled to €180 a week. That payment would make a huge difference to that family for the nine months involved and following that period that man would be back into the workforce. We must examine this issue as it is a major one as we move forward. People have pushed for the introduction of this new stamp and if we get this system up and running it will greatly benefit people, regardless of whatever political party brings it in as I am not bringing politics into this issue. I suffered in this respect as I was self-employed and had a business but lost it after 24 years.

I was entitled to absolutely nothing. Weeks went by when I did not know if I had enough money to put food on the table, not to mention paying the mortgage.