Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

What the Minister for Social and Family Affairs pointed out last night in an effort to be helpful in a discussion that took place on an RTE programme was to the effect that, obviously, no decisions are yet taken but every area of public expenditure, including social welfare, must be looked at in the context of what contribution it can make towards making the €4 billion savings that must be made to stabilise the deficit. Budgets cannot be about false choices. Certainly there will be an opportunity in the pre-budget outlook debate that can take place here in coming weeks for parties to outline their positions as to how they would make up the €4 billion saving. However, the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, was simply outlining the various options and issues being looked at in that context.

If we look at the child benefit situation, we have seen a trebling of child benefit for the first two children and an increase of more than 185% for the third child and subsequent children since 2001. The cost of child benefit at the time was approximately €960 million and it is now approximately €2.5 billion. The overall social welfare budget is more than €21 billion. The total moneys coming into the Exchequer as of the end of October was €26 billion. Clearly large areas of expenditure, including social welfare of course, cannot be immune from consideration when the Government decides what savings to make.

The Minister, Deputy Hanafin, was simply outlining that position and saying obviously that Government will make the decisions in due course. What we are always trying to achieve of course is, in the context of any expenditure savings or adjustments that have to be made, to protect the least well off to the very best extent we can.

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