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

Shortly after that on "Morning Ireland" I heard a spokesperson for the Simon Community who said there had been a 41% increase in homelessness in the past two years. This is a direct result of this Government's actions.

In 2014 the Government cut maternity benefit. The Minister of State, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, and the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, abolished the telephone allowance for elderly people living alone in the budget announced in October 2013 and it came into effect in January 2014. The Government abolished the one-parent family payment for new applicants where the youngest child is over seven years of age in the middle of 2014.

The Government had the choice to spend taxpayers’ money in 2014 on the telephone allowance for elderly people living alone, on maintaining maternity benefit and one-parent family payments but chose instead to spend it on installing water meters and paying bonuses and consultants in Irish Water through Vote 25 of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, which it thinks we will support today. We certainly will not.

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