Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

These figures speak volumes. Consider these figures against the Department's total cuts. The Government has a choice. It does not have to hand over that money. However, it has made a political choice, to hit the weakest in society and at the same time to hand over that money. The Minister could have chosen to increase social welfare payments, if the Government had withheld that money, as should be done. Whether she likes it or not, spending on social protection will increase because of the choices she has made, which will lengthen our dole queues. Irish manufacturers, suppliers and retailers will announce their worst trading figures next year. Coupled with the VAT rate increase, the refusal to deal with upward only rent reviews and the undermining of the limited spending power of those receiving social welfare payments, the Minister and her colleagues have condemned thousands of small and not so small shops and suppliers to closure, consigning tens of thousands more people to the dole queues and adding to the spend on social welfare. That is not good mathematics.

I will now address some of the most odious cuts proposed in this Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition's attempt at a Social Welfare Bill. The first is the disability allowance, sections 8 to 10, inclusive, of the Bill. The Minister proposed to abolish disability allowance for 16 to 17 year olds and to cut the rates of payment for those between 18 and 24 years of age. I do not know whether the Minister watches the television programme "Shameless" - not the American version but the English one which is probably closer to real life in some ways. When she was dreaming up these proposals, perhaps she was watching it, was operating under some false cloud and believed the false assumption put across in the programme that, in some way, everybody on disability is, and I use the term the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, used, "wayward" - that they are wayward scroungers. If she had any understanding of disability, the Minister-----

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