Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. He has said the social policy unit works closely with other Departments to advance social inclusion. Is the Department of Finance one of the Departments it works closely with and if so, has the social policy unit had an input into decision making as regards the social welfare provisions of the budget, next week? If it did, what weight did it carry? Was it a case of it just saying, in effect, "We need to be careful about the social inclusion aspect of the removal of the Christmas bonus and its impact on pensioners, children and so on". Was this conveyed strongly by the social policy unit to the Minister for Finance, to emphasise the enormous negative impact this will present for pensioners and children, in particular, around Christmas time?

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