Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

While I recognise the wonderful work done by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the moral situation we must face is how we can provide a sustainable level of assistance to people who are on social welfare, based on our current economic circumstances. If it is suggested that the choice is that one leaves everything as it is because one wants to be in favour of helping those who are unemployed or dependent on the social welfare system as against another crowd, depicted as the Government, who are against people of that ilk, it is a totally wrong choice to put forward. During the good times we ensured, quite rightly, that people on social welfare received unprecedented increases to assist them. Anybody who looks at the successive budgets will acknowledge the progressivity in those budgets in terms of helping people on low incomes, working families and people on social welfare. We are proud of that record. In the past five years, with inflation of 11.9% since 2004, the basic jobseeker's allowance increased by 37.7% and pensions increased by 51.1%. It was correct that these increases were granted, particularly in view of the resources available to us at the time.

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