Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The entitlement for certain new claimants to a concurrent half-rate of jobseeker's benefit or illness benefit will be discontinued.

The Bill is not only anti-family and anti-women but also anti-rural. The means test for farm assist will be changed, school transport charges will be increased and REPS and disadvantaged area payments will be reduced by 10%. The community employment schemes will be decimated by the loss of 1,500 capitation grants. That equates to the guts of €50,000 for a scheme employing 30 people. God help the person who is offered a job on a CE scheme as a grave-digger because he will not be given a shovel.

Small businesses, retailers-----

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