Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

I withdraw it.

The claim made by this and other Ministers that social welfare was the last item they wanted to cut is completely and utterly untrue. It was one of the first items they decided to target. She decided it was all right for rich people not to pay a price or to make a contribution to our recovery. It is all right to allow them to avoid paying tax through property-based tax relief schemes and outrageously generous self-administered pension schemes and reliefs for director's pension, yet she will hammer people on social welfare. When the Minister concludes the debate tomorrow, will she kindly explain her thinking in that regard? How can she justify cutting social welfare while an extraordinary, ridiculously generous corporate welfare regime is retained?

The Government will provide €11 billion for the banks, while, at the same time, falsely claiming it cannot avoid cutting welfare for people who need it. This is the backdrop to the budget and it is an affront to the public. It is wrong to say these welfare cuts were necessary and the Minister repeated this comment twice earlier. It is simply untrue. This Bill represents a direct attack on the less well off and it is cold, deliberate and calculated. It will make the poor pay for the mistakes of the Bertie, McCreevy and Cowen years, and it has turned the recession into a repression of the least well off. Much of the commentary by so-called experts in the run up to the budget referred to the need to cut social welfare, yet these people know nothing of what it is like to live on little money. If they ever experienced hardship, they have long forgotten what it is like. They know little about what it is like to struggle to cope with demands from the bank, the utility company and one's children unlike when one was in a position to provide for oneself.

It is of equal concern that much of this was done with the agreement of Fine Gael. The run up to the budget was characterised by a hard man competition between the two Civil War parties to see who could be the toughest. I was gobsmacked when Fine Gael advocated a 3% cut for the unemployed. Is that meant to represent an alternative to the Government? It was an act to look tough. It was more like macho economics than macroeconomics. Representatives of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael said the unemployed are lazy, they are unemployed because it is their own fault and they need to be forced back to work by squeezing their income. The fact of life for people who have lost their jobs is different from that. I do not know whether the Minister ever speaks to such people in her constituency clinics to realise how devastated they are. They spend hours every day applying for the few jobs that are advertised and they go around handing in curricula vitae to businesses. They are utterly demoralised when they cannot find a way of earning an income to look after their families. The Minister should try telling them to their face that it is their fault they are unemployed. That is what she is doing by targeting the unemployed for cuts. It is hard to be more heartless than that.

This approach hits the less well-off for the sake of political gain and credibility in the media and it has nothing to do with improving the economy. I am disappointed with those in the media who, through laziness, bought the entire Government spin on the budget hook, line and sinker. Many of them are economic commentators who have vested interests. As Deputy Gilmore said earlier, they often fail to disclose those interests. Several others work on behalf of media outlets that have clear vested interests and they came out talking tough about how the unemployed and others on welfare, those on the minimum wage and public servants needed to take a cut. They have an absolute cheek to do that. There is no prospect of them having to survive on €204 per week. They would not think twice about spending it on a night out. It would be small change for them and they have a neck to use the media to act as cheerleaders for this right wing Government and to encourage Ministers to cut welfare.

We have a high welfare bill because the Government has failed to stem the explosion in unemployment we have experienced over the past two years and not because payments are over generous. The Government parties have taken their eye off the ball regarding job protection and job creation and that is why the social welfare bill is high. They need to address that now.

I refer to the practical effects of this Bill. Everyone on welfare aged under 66 will be hit by a reduction in their basic income of approximately 4%. On top of this, there will be no Christmas bonus next year, which represents a 2% cutback. They face higher drug payments, new prescription charges, cuts in dental services and a 4% reduction in rental support if they are in the private rented sector. The cumulative effect of all of these cuts is vicious. Someone who has recently lost his or her job and who is in receipt of jobseeker's benefit not only has to deal with a substantial drop in income but he or she now will also lose €432 as a result of the budget. This is the same as kicking people when they are down.

A jobseeker in his early 20s stands to lose €2,823 annually. Child benefit has been cut by 10% just as the early child care supplement is abolished. A family with two children aged under five could lose €1,380 and a new poverty trap has been created to boot. A widow stands to lose €641 per year in the budget. A person with disabilities on disability allowance will lose €636 annually. In addition, she will have to pay €5 per week under the drugs treatment scheme, 50 cent for every prescription she fills, and she will have to go on a long waiting list to access dental treatment because of cutbacks under the treatment benefit scheme. A couple on invalidity pension aged under 66 will lose €1,100 per annum. Carer's benefit has been cut by €648 per year while a blind pensioner couple stands to lose up to €1,455 annually. There is still no reform of mortgage interest supplement or of any of the many other poverty traps throughout the system.

I will now consider some of these cuts in more details. The cut of 10% in child benefit payments proposed in section 7 of the Bill represents yet another attack by the Government on families. For families with very young children, the cut comes just as the early child care supplement is abolished. In addition, child benefit has already been cut for 18 year olds, a decision which will undoubtedly lead to a much higher rate of young people dropping out of school and college.

The effect of the two budgets this year is that a single income couple earning €40,000 per year with two children under five years of age - not wealthy people by any means - will have €370 less income per month. That is without counting any cuts in pay. It proves that the Government is placing the biggest burden of adjustment on families. Despite the general decline in prices, many of the regular costs faced by working families, including crèche and doctor fees, remain very high and have not been reduced. In addition, the measures targeted to compensate low income households for the general cut in child benefit effectively ends the universality of child benefit. This is a huge social policy error which introduces yet another poverty trap into the system.

The family income supplement, FIS, continues to be a payment that is simply not achieving what it is meant to. It has a low take up for many reasons; it is complex, employers do not like it, it does not suit flexible working times or intermittent work patterns and it does not factor in costs such as child care or mortgages. It is disappointing that yet another social welfare Bill is presented to the House without reforming FIS, particularly so when the Minister is relying on it as a targeted measure. It is quite clear that many of the people in families where the head of the household works for a low income will feel the brunt of the cut in child benefit and will not have the benefit of the proposed compensating measures because they do not claim FIS. Everybody knows FIS has a low take up and those families and children will be the ones to pay the price in the budget. I thought the comments of the Children's Rights Alliance on the effect of the budget were interesting. It stated that selecting for cuts payments targeted at children demonstrated that nothing, not even childhood, is safe from the Government's knife.

The impact on young jobseekers is particularly harsh. Section 6 seeks to restrict jobseeker's allowance payments to €100 per week for those aged 20 and 21 years. A jobseeker aged 22, 23 or 24 years stands to lose €54 per week or €2,823 per annum. For a 21 year old, the loss is €5,424 per annum. This loss of income is bad enough, but it is the intention of these measures that is particularly offensive. It is abundantly clear that the real purpose of these reforms is to promote emigration. It is profoundly hypocritical that the Government continually uses the "brain drain" excuse for not increasing income tax on very high earners yet is introducing a series of cutbacks for those aged under 25 that actively promotes such a brain drain.

Young people who have gone through college, worked hard and obtained degrees and who now find themselves unable to find employment through no fault of their own will be driven out of their home country through this measure. There is no question about that. Those affected by these cuts can boost their income if they attend a training course but where are these training courses? When a cut was made for those aged under 20 in the April budget it sounded fine. The principle is grand; people can go on training courses and receive the full rate payment. However, this is not what happened. Figures released to me recently show that three out of every four people under the age of 20 in receipt of jobseeker's allowance did not get a training place and are trying to survive on a payment of €100 per week. There is an obvious financial disincentive for the Government to provide training courses because of the substantial costs involved. That is what this is about; putting the squeeze on young people and getting them to pay for this recession. It has very little to do with training when one considers the dearth of training places available for those looking for them.

Insured workers paying into PRSI have a legitimate expectation of receiving dental and optical treatment and this is being cut. There is also a cut of €30 million in dental treatment for people on medical cards.

Tomorrow, we will vote on all of these measures and it seems that the Government will be supported in those votes by a number of people who do not hold the Fianna Fáil Party whip. I am speaking about Deputies Grealish, McDaid, Healy-Rae, Lowry, Devins and Scanlon. I am a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs of which Deputy Healy-Rae is the Chairman for which he gets paid a handsome allowance. There is no obligation on Deputy Healy-Rae to support these social welfare cuts tomorrow. As Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs he would be acting in absolute bad faith if he supported them. Over the past year, umpteen groups have come before the committee to outline to us the very real hardship caused to many of their people as a result of the previous two budgets. They have made it very clear to us that the poor simply cannot take any more cuts. Deputy Healy-Rae is not in any doubt about the hardship that people on social welfare encounter. He has to make a decision either to support the Government by voting for these social welfare cuts or to vote against them and continue as Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs. It is completely and utterly incompatible for somebody in the role of Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs to vote to implement the harshest cuts on the most vulnerable people.

Yesterday, he was on the airwaves telling us a cock and bull story about a deal for a 42-bed hospital. Did the Minister for Health and Children know anything about this? The chances of that hospital seeing the light of day are slim to none. I hope the constituents of Kerry South, those people dependent on social welfare who have disabilities or children or who are unemployed or lone parents, are aware of what their Deputy Healy-Rae plans to do tomorrow. If he votes for the Government's cuts he is selling his constituents down the Swanee. As is the case throughout the country, many people in Kerry South are dependent on social welfare payments. If he votes in favour of the cuts tomorrow I will call on him to resign. If he has any shame at all he should resign his position as Chairman of the committee.

I call on the other five Deputies who seem to be positioning themselves to support the Government to make it clear to their constituents what they are doing. There is no obligation on them to support this. They are not under a whip. It is their choice. If they vote for these cuts they must face the consequences in their constituencies.

It is quite clear that Fianna Fáil no longer has a social conscience. It could not have introduced this budget if it had any element of a social conscience remaining. The Government had choices; it could have hit those who can best afford to pay. Instead it chose to leave millionaires alone. They chose to hit the most vulnerable and those who depend on the State to survive. That is a far cry from the kind of ideals espoused by the founding fathers of the Fianna Fáil Party.

It is clear Fianna Fáil has lost its social conscience. The position in respect of the Green Party is simply incredible. Fianna Fáil is the party of the developer, the banker and the speculator and it shows little regard for ordinary people who are trying to get by. In such circumstances, one would have thought the Green Party would have tried to exert some influence on Fianna Fáil so that the budget might have included some element of fairness. I do not know the whereabouts of the Members who represent the Green Party. They have not been present in the Chamber today at all. They rarely appear when a serious debate takes place in the House and I do not believe they understand the concept of social welfare. Their heads appear to be in the clouds. They do not understand the reality with which people are faced in the context of trying to survive and rear their children while on social welfare payments.

The Members of the Green Party are an absolute disgrace. Those of us who thought they would have put the brakes on Fianna Fáil and prevent it from running riot in respect of the most vulnerable were wrong. It is clear, however, that those to whom I refer have bought into the Fianna Fáil ethos. They have lost the run of themselves and, just as Fianna Fáil did long ago, sold out on ordinary people.

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