Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

-----to a position where we can develop schemes and structures that will help employers to retain workers, whether on a full or part-time basis, rather than spending hundreds of millions of euro in each year of this appalling financial difficulty to make people redundant. I know Deputy Cowen and others said they had a difficulty with the inclusion of this provision in the Bill. It is very appropriate to try to reorganise the finances of social welfare in a way that provides the maximum amount of money available in very straitened times.

I am delighted we have had no direct cuts in social welfare rates this year, and that is a considerable achievement compared to the €8 everybody lost last year-----

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