Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Department of Social Protection is the country's largest spending Department and many people look to the Department for income support. It is important to ensure the maximum protection for those people in the forthcoming budget while reforming social welfare to help people get back to work and become active and engaged. For that reason, I launched the first of the new, integrated social welfare offices yesterday in Sligo. When I spoke on Friday, I referred to core social welfare rates, which are weekly social welfare rates families and individuals receive, as outlined by Deputy O'Dea. They depend on them for their income or for the bulk of their income. In the case of many of our pensioners, weekly pension income may be the only income they receive. Last year, although it was extremely challenging, the Department was able to protect the core weekly social welfare rates of social welfare recipients. We have made no decisions yet on budget 2013, a fact emphasised at the meeting on Friday.

Many kites have been flown by various people about what might or might not happen in the budget.

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