Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

How is an elderly widower or widow living alone supposed to heat his or her house on only half the income he or she had when two people lived in the house?

I compliment the Minister on reversing the cut to disability allowance. The former Minister for finance, the late Brian Lenihan, took the measure out of a budget, but someone in the Department did not shred it and the Minister put it back in. The Government would have gone ahead with it if it had not experienced the wrath of the public.

As Deputy Donnelly said, the Minister will be back with a supplementary budget because this one will not work. Because of the extra 2% in VAT, people will not be able to spend and small businesses will shed jobs rather than take people off the dole.

There has been a cut made in respect of community employment schemes. I am the chairperson of a community employment scheme in my locality and this cut is disastrous. We will not be able to put in place progressive training schemes. I could quote the figures for costs, but I will not go into them because the Minister knows what they are. Some 5,000 people will be in debt even before the scheme starts next year.

The cuts are regressive. I do not know where the rural and urban Deputies were when they were supposed to be discussing the fairness and reasonableness of the budget. Fairness went out the window when the Government looked after the big people and forgot the small people, as did previous Governments. Fine Gael is present, but where is the Labour Party?

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