Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

What I said is that the data available to the Department indicates that this is used where people's partners, spouses, cohabiting persons are in full-time employment and the earnings indicators are significantly in excess of €400 a week. In the context of how Fianna Fáil left the country - Deputy Ó Cuív was a member of that Government and sat in on the bank guarantee and so on - we, unfortunately, inherited an agreement on structural adjustment entered into by the Fianna Fáil Party with the IMF and the troika. Rather than doing what Deputy Ó Cuív did last year - cut everybody's payment by €8 a week and child benefit by €10 a month - we have kept all the primary rates in tact. I thought that would have pleased the Deputy because the cuts he made last year followed cuts made the previous year of €8.30 a week all payments, bar old age pension. The cut to child benefit that year was €10 a month. We have pressed the pause button on the weekly rates. As the Deputy will know, most people on social welfare receive the primary rate, but there are those whose spouses, thankfully, work. In that respect, there is an income in excess of €400 a week coming into the house. In order to provide resources, we are limiting the measure to those with less than €400 a week. Given the mess in which the country was left, we had difficult choices to make. I would prefer if we did not have to make this change.

Under the social welfare system there is an extraordinary number of schemes, allowances, disregards and so on. One of the commitments Fianna Fáil entered into with the troika was to have single age payments, in other words, somebody from the age of 18 years to the time he or she retires will, broadly, be in the same framework, whether it be on jobseeker's, lone parent's or disability payments. This is part of that process.

If we have economic recovery, it will be so much easier to carry out these necessary reforms. It is such a pity that when Deputy Cowen talked yesterday about there being 300% increases in social welfare paymetns during Fianna Fáil's time in office, the opportunity was not taken to introduce reforms. Deputy Ó Cuív knows the system is very complex and that we are under pressure from our partners in the troika because we are borrowing money to pay, in part, social welfare payments. One of the reasons the country went into deficit was that when the building boom ended, the taxes raised through building, construction and property development and so on ebbed away and we were left reliant on what ordinary people paid through their taxes and PRSI on wages and in VAT.

I wish we were doing this in a time of plenty. I would have liked to bring in a budget based on extra resources being available to everybody in need, but we are not in that position and, therefore, must prepare a budget in the knowlege that much more limited resources are available. What I find disappointing is that while Opposition Members want to preserve basic rates - most of them have acknowledged we inherited a very difficult economic situation-----

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