Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

I remind the Taoiseach that he made commitments not to introduce welfare cuts and I ask him to reiterate that commitment to the House.

I also ask the Taoiseach to address the issue of proposed cuts to rent supplement, which keeps a roof over 95,000 households. The Taoiseach knows as well as I do that the local authority housing stock is woefully inadequate and that any cut to rent supplement would cause huge difficulty and suffering to people who are also struggling.

The Government is keen to talk about social welfare fraud. What is meant is irregular payments, including departmental error. The Taoiseach might look at the extravagant salaries paid to special advisers to the Government which are sanctioned by the Government in breach of its own caps. One special adviser to the Minister for Social Protection is in receipt of a salary of €127,796. That payment was sanctioned by the Government and is in breach of the caps advanced by the Government. This is the same Government that is cooking up plans to slash the welfare budget.

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