This involved incredibly difficult policy decisions because not cutting as severely as one could in areas such as education means in other areas, such as social welfare in particular and health, reductions are being made for which it is very hard for anyone to argue in favour. I can only state that we do it not in the interests of creating a less equal society but in a real attempt to try to get our public finances working and to get our economy and jobs working so people will not be reliant on social welfare payments. For those who require it, there will still be maintained a basic protection in our society recognising that those who cannot work their way through enterprise or by other means do have to be protected, be they pensioners or other people in similar categories who cannot rely on their own endeavours. These changes are very difficult; they were not easy to make but it was done in this context.

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