Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)

The poor need a champion and the Minister simply does not fit that bill.

The Christmas bonus is a recognition of the additional costs that arise during the festive season and it is intended to allow those of our citizens who cannot afford those costs to take part in the Christmas festival like everyone else. It is a recognition of their worth to the rest of us. It removes some of the stress and worry that is characteristic of poverty. It allows a little sweetness and light to enter people's lives. Now the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, and the new Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady, propose to put out that light and withdraw any possibility of sweetness at Christmas. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Who are the people who will be adversely affected by this Fianna Fáil proposal? Who are the people the Fianna Fáil Party in Government has selected for special brutal treatment? Who has Fianna Fáil decided are best able to fund the developers and the bankers' excesses? They include old age pensioners, disabled people, the long-term unemployed, the blind, widows and carers, single parents and others. Is Fianna Fáil seriously saying those citizens who are worthy of our care and support should pay for the bloody bankers by having their Christmas abolished? Again I say, shame on Fianna Fáil.

I come from a Fianna Fáil family and background and I am very aware of the old ethos of that extended family. I recall being told of Mr. Blythe taking the shilling from the old age pensioners and the attendant message that the weakest in our society must be protected. That then was the Fianna Fáil ethos. My late father would turn in his grave if he knew how far the party had shifted from that earlier and honourable position.

The abolition of the Christmas bonus is a benchmark. It is a crossing of the line. It is a point of no return for Fianna Fáil. Those on whom it depended to put it in this House will hear their message. Fianna Fáil has abandoned them and they will pay back Fianna Fáil in kind. There are many decent, honourable men and women representing Fianna Fáil in this House. I know from talking to them that this proposal is the opposite to all in which they believe. It cuts across the ethos of fairness and justice that they hold dear as well, and which they seek to uphold as Members of this House. I appeal to them to stand by their principles, to reject this rotten, mean proposal by either voting against the proposal and for the Labour proposition that the Christmas bonus be reinstated or if that is a bridge too far, to abstain when the vote is called.

The Government proposal to abolish the Christmas bonus for welfare recipients will adversely and severely affect approximately 1 million citizens. The money saved will be used to bail out the rotten banks and the building speculators who are long-time friends of Fianna Fáil. Welfare recipients did not cause the problems we now face and why should they pay to bail out those who caused the problem?

See this speech in context