Ulick Burke (Galway East, Fine Gael)

In 1955 a predecessor of the Minister, the late Minister, Mr. Moran, was the first to introduce a double payment at Christmas time, albeit for a selective group. If the Minister can tell social welfare recipients, especially old age pensioners, that times are worse now than in 1955 then the Government has failed to tell the public how deep is the recession.

The Minister for Finance has made many changes to the budget to date and he blustered in regard to some of the mistakes he made but changes have taken place. There is room for change. There are suggestions in the motion as to where the Minister can find the money she needs. Many other suggestions were made by other Opposition Members about where the funding could be found, but nobody had anticipated that the Government would again seek to make old age pensioners a soft target for further cuts given that they had already been hit in the October budget.

Everybody in the House, including the Minister, has probably received a letter from the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament, the voice of the elderly. It has been forced to put pen to paper in disbelief to express its concerns. The Minister more or less made the excuse to the House tonight that some elderly people were so well off that they did not use the free fuel allowances allocated to them. It is scraping the bottom of the barrel to use that as an excuse. It is unbelievable that a Minister would make such a hurtful assertion. I hope the Minister will change her mind on this measure before the Bill is implemented. What is hurtful in April will be much more so next November prior to Christmas.

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