Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

He said child benefit is to increase and "on top of that, for the very first time, an extra payment of €22 will be made". When the interviewer asked him to clarify the point he again said this €22 was on top of the child dependant allowance and was an "extra payment". The representative from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, who is not accustomed to that kind of brazen faced misrepresentation, was gobsmacked. The word she used was "perplexed". All anybody can find in the budget is a modest increase in the child dependant allowance to €22. It is not an extra payment on top. The Minister said this morning it was a revamp of the CDAs.

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