Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

This Social Welfare Bill is shameful, offensive and deeply unfair. It shows that the Labour Party has completely lost touch and has turned its back on its founders, its members and the general public. If the party had even a modicum of decency, it would ensure the Bill was withdrawn immediately.

What Barnardos has said about the budget and its impact on family incomes, namely, that the Government's measure of success is pushing more families into poverty, is instructive. It also referred to the measures in the budget as being "regressive, unfair and unsustainable". A man by the name of Fergus Finlay, the chief executive of Barnardos, former adviser to the Labour Party and probably still a member thereof and one of those put forward as a possible candidate to stand for the party in the recent presidential election said that what is being done in respect of child benefit is "a blunt and brutal attack on family incomes with no sense of fairness or equity". That is a perfect description of what is being done, which is a complete breach of the commitments and promises made by Labour during the general election campaign. According to this sign I have in my hands, Labour promised to protect child benefit.

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