Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

This budget provides significant resources to allow us to address the needs of those most disadvantaged. This approach has enabled us, as a society, to deliver significant improvements for people on low incomes in recent years and this continues to be the best way to deliver future social welfare enhancements in a sustainable way.

The Government is committed to working closely with the social partners to achieve even more. We have already met the important thresholds that we set ourselves some time ago. We are determined to consolidate these substantial achievements and continue to make progress. In line with this overall approach, the improvements in social welfare benefits and child care payments that I am providing for today will amount to an additional €957 million in 2008 and €980 million in a full year. This is over half of the increase in total current spending compared to the pre-budget outlook.

Pensions

The Government is conscious of the need to protect and improve the income position of our older people. In recent years, significant social welfare increases for pensioners were delivered and key targets were achieved. Today, the Government will further build on these achievements by increasing the full personal rate of the State contributory pension by €14 per week and the State non-contributory pension by €12 per week.

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