Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

Given the times in which we are living, when there is such turmoil not just in this country but also in other parts of the world, although it is far worse in this country, one would wonder why losing the Christmas bonus is having such an impact. The difficulty with losing the Christmas bonus is that the people who receive it never benefited in the first place from the ten years of boom this country experienced. Being on long-term social welfare payments, regardless of what they were, meant one's income was fixed. The people who did not benefit from the type of excesses we saw in this country are now being hit with probably the meanest cut of all.

The argument is made that this is a discretionary payment. Why, therefore, would somebody be so upset when it is gone? When Fianna Fáil was in Opposition it had a slogan, which resonated with the entire country, that cuts affect the old, the sick and the poor. I do not blame this Minister entirely for what has happened. The social welfare budget did not drop out of the sky; it is part of the package the Minister for Finance put together. It was a little rich of him today to tell Members of the Opposition that we are living in a bubble. There was a bubble all right, and I would not like to say where it was. It was not outside of anyone's body, but inside. It was also a little rich of him today to criticise the Opposition for not knowing what is happening in the country. We have been trying to tell him for the past two years what has been happening.

The old were the first to be hit, through the medical card. That issue was half resolved. The poor are now being hit, as are people who are sick or who have a disability. However, I must pay tribute to the Minister. It was proposed in one of the budgets - there have been three in quick succession - that people with a disability would not receive disability allowance until they were 18 years old, as opposed to the current position where they receive it at 16 years of age. When the hard facts were pointed out to the Minister, she reversed the decision. I pay tribute to her for that. I now ask her to seriously examine this particular measure and reverse it.

All Members are canvassing at present. In the free time we have we usually find ourselves on somebody's doorstep. Some mornings ago I was doing that and spoke to a woman whose husband has been ill for many years. She asked about the Christmas bonus. I told her we would do our best to have the decision reversed. I asked her what she does with the Christmas bonus. She told me that in November, when the bonus is paid, she usually has the children's clothes put aside and she pays for them with the bonus. As soon as that is done, she said, she starts on the other things for Christmas.

We can talk all we like about the notion that social welfare is discretionary and not a right. One can argue that it is insurance or contribution based. I happen to believe that if we intend to look after people who do not have the financial wherewithal to look after themselves, it should be a right. However, that is a different argument. Nevertheless, how does one lower the expectations of children? How does one tell children that one cannot afford a toy this year, without shattering the illusion of Christmas? It is an illusion, but it is a nice illusion and one that we have built up and encouraged. It is one of the few nice times during the year from which children benefit. How does one shatter that illusion for children? How does one start lowering their expectations?

There are all sorts of arguments and one hears them every day. This Government might seem to be floundering around in some type of unreality but it has done some things very deliberately which worry me. It started with setting the public sector against the private sector. That was a very deliberate campaign which bore fruit. We will see the consequences of it in the next few years. It has now set about dividing the workers from the people who depend on the State. One can hear it rippling everywhere. That worries me even more. We will all pay for that type of division eventually because it divides society. It boxes people away, which worries me. We should never allow that to happen.

One can say that people on very limited incomes should manage their money better. However, I have never seen the poor at sales. The reason one does not see the poor at sales is that they do not have enough money to go to them. They never have enough to set aside money to build up a lump sum so they can go to the sales and pick up the bargains the rest of us get. The people on social welfare about whom I worry more than others, as I have said to the Minister previously, are the people who are by themselves, the lone parents or single people living alone. They are the people who suffer most from a decision such as this. All the research shows that lone parents and people with children are most likely to fall into poverty. They are the people who need this bonus more than anybody else.

I have praised the Minister for reversing the decision on disability allowance. I now urge her to re-examine this decision. We hear she is enjoying huge success in the elimination of fraud. She should have another look at the budget and see if it is possible to reinstate this once-off annual payment on which so many people have come to rely. It is not as if this is something new. It is something that people on limited incomes factor into their budgets every year. Removing it will cause enormous hardship.

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