Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)

I am in no doubt but that many people believed in the Labour Party before last February's general election. At that time, the Labour Party had a message of hope regarding an alternative. It would be Labour's way or Frankfurt's way. The party of Connolly would protect the interests of workers and the marginalised. However, one should roll on the clock some months. The electorate rewarded the Labour Party for its efforts with the place in government its members so desperately craved. Unfortunately for all those who believed in the message of the Labour Party, the change in Government did not herald a change in policy, politics, strategy or direction. If one ever needed proof, it is contained in this Bill. While the new Government spent its time publicly criticising its predecessors for landing it in this mess, it privately agreed with its approach. Group-think landed us in this position and while Fine Gael and the Labour Party believe group-think will get us out of it, it is obvious it will not. The Government's blueprint for recovery predicts, in some sort of ironic joke, that in 2015, after four years of crippling austerity and emigration, at least 382,000 people still will be unemployed. The Government acknowledges this but carries on regardless. It acknowledges this but refuses to recognise that alternatives exist or at least it refuses to entertain them.

This Social Welfare Bill will be part of the guarantee that will realise this prediction. That the Labour Party in government - a Labour Minister to boot - could deliver such a Social Welfare Bill in the context of a budget that protected the well-off literally is unbelievable. In this budget, lone parents, the disabled, children, widows and the elderly and vulnerable were perceived as fair game. The effect of the Social Welfare Bill will further cement inequality in Ireland. The Labour Party and Fine Gael have conspired in coalition to deliver a budget that will result in a family in receipt of social welfare benefits and with three children losing more than its equivalent who earns €150,000 per annum, that is, a loss of €1,078 versus €1,050. The Bill under discussion gives effect to much of that difference.

Moreover, the position is not much better for households that are at risk of poverty, one quarter of which are headed by someone who is in some form of employment. A household with three children will lose €228 in 2012 in respect of child benefit alone and an additional €96 from 2013. If a family has four or more children, the loss will be €288 for the third child and €204 for each additional child in 2012, with further cuts scheduled for 2013. This money to a family on the margin literally could mean the difference between heat and cold, food and hunger and, heaven forbid, life and death. For those families reliant on the State for support, this Social Welfare Bill may well pull them under the water. Those who voted for change last February have been sorely let down. This Bill will have a devastating effect on the lives of ordinary people who now, more than ever, need Members of the House to stand up for them. I appeal to all Members to oppose the Bill, as choices and alternatives exist.

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