Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Finally, the household benefits package and the bereavement grant changes have been fundamental issues and the Minister has gone out of his way to attack the elderly.

I refer to two items. One relates to the overall Government waste. I would advise the Ministers to read the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. There is €300 million of waste in there. The Minister, Deputy Howlin, is refusing to deal with it. He has not even added it up. His Department has stated that it has not even checked the figures in the report. The Minister would be better eliminating that waste and inefficient use of Government resources rather than punishing the Departments of Health and Social Protection.

On how this budget will go down, I learned, when the Minister, Deputy Howlin, announced what the investments from the national lottery licence of 2014 will help fund, that this is the Government local elections slush fund. There is €200 million to buy the votes in the local elections. It is the Government's local elections slush fund. That was to be put into job creation but the Minister is using it to buy votes with such measures as road maintenance, sports capital grants, the indoor training arena, housing grants for the elderly, the city of culture initiative etc.

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