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

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Social Welfare Bill 2014. The Bill, as presented is a particularly short one. It essentially contains one section, which runs to little more than a page. One must ask what it is all about. It gives statutory effect to the recent budgetary announcement by the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform. Two items of legislation are required on foot of the announcement, namely, the Finance Bill, Second Stage of which was discussed last week, and the Social Welfare Bill we are discussing today. The Bills are related as they cover different aspects of the same budget day announcement.

One could ask whether the budget was good or bad. The answer is very simple. The budget can be summarised in one simple sentence. On budget day and on the following day people asked me to explain the budget to them. I gave a straight answer to the question put to me. If one earns an income of more than €70,000 per annum then one is better off. If one earns an income of less than €40,000 a year, that is €800 a week, one is worse off.

In the context of the Finance Bill and the Social Welfare Bill, we are talking about legislation to copperfasten a budget that gave tax increases to the wealthy and caused severe difficulty for every household in the country with an income of less than €800 a week. The latter group is worse off following the budget. Anybody who thinks for a minute that the Opposition will support any legislative enactment to bring the budget into effect is badly mistaken. The budget was wrong. It was regressive. It looked after the wealthy - certain supporters of certain parties in government - and the other party in government was ignored. In case people do not understand, the budget is simple. If one’s household income is more than €70,000 a year, one is better off and if one has a household income of less than €800 a week, one is worse off.

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