Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I ask the Acting Chairman to alert me when I have a minute left. I am delighted to have this opportunity to say directly to the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Mary Hanafin, that I am surprised by her at a personal level because I always believed there was an element of fairness in everything she did. However, on this occasion, she and the Government have got it wrong.

A week ago, everybody in the House believed and accepted we had to achieve €4 billion in savings and we all put out our various stalls. Naturally, I believe what Fine Gael did was properly costed. I shall put it to the Minister in this way. We had to achieve €4 billion in savings but one can contrast what €108 million is - I am long enough in the House to remember when that was a great deal of money - against €4 billion. What did we get for that €108 million? We crucified the carers, the blind, the disabled and the widows. It was the first time I saw a Government putting its hand into the pockets of blind people, literally, to rob them. Shame on the Government. There are certain disabilities that, unfortunately, are of such a scale there is no real future for a great number of people who suffer from them. For the life of me, I could not understand why the Government had to do that. It got a lesson and a half last year with the pensioners and did not touch them this time. However, it will get another big lesson from this cohort.

In the few seconds at my disposal, I point out the way the business was jigged. The minute I heard the Minister for Finance say that everybody who worked, even those who earned less than €30,000, would be hit by a 5% cut, I knew there would be big trouble. I do not have time to explain the Fine Gael proposal but we had a way around this. Now that we have the cut there is nothing we can do about it because all sorts of deals were made last week with backbenchers and Independent Deputies and obviously they will all weld in together for another while. The electorate will catch up with them at the finish but that is another story.

It was most unfair to clap a 5% cut on anybody who earned less than €30,000. When the Government interfered with child benefit, it had no alternative but to transfer some of that amount back to mothers whose children would be affected. It did so by increasing the child dependant allowance, as I used call it. There is nothing wrong with that except for the fact that no Government since 1994 thought about increasing the child dependant allowance until last year or the year before. Something was added to the allowance in the past two years and this will create another poverty trap. People in that category who are entitled to this payment, which should not have been taken from them in the first place, will find that there are many jobs they will be unable to take up.

Another element I would like the Minister to examine is the method of assessment for jobseeker's allowance and farm assist for people who are self-employed. I mentioned this matter previously and, in fairness, some efforts were made to address it, but an impasse has been reached now in that, for whatever reason, the method of calculation is wrong for somebody who was previously self-employed, is now unemployed, has no money in the bank and nothing to live on but who has some type of property. I ask the Minister to examine that quickly because it is out of order.

On the fair deal scheme, I saw a circular from a nursing home which suggested that because of the introduction of that scheme on 1 February, it would be entitled to charge €750 per week as opposed to the current fee of €650 per week. Someone should examine that to find out how that could be the case.

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