Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is not me the Tánaiste has to convince of people's anxiety to get back to work. That is a conversation she should have much closer to home, primarily with her colleague, the Minister for Finance. I trust she will have that conversation with him and will ask him to desist from insulting and being condescending towards people who find themselves out of work. That would be at least one constructive thing that the Tánaiste might do. Her comments set aside entirely the reality of the lives of people on small fixed incomes for whom the quarterly payment of €65 is simply beyond their reach. What is absolutely beyond me is that fact that the Tánaiste, as a Labour Party leader, and her colleagues on the Labour Party benches do not recognise that reality. A bill of €65 might seem like a small sum to all of us here, but when someone is stretching week after week and not meeting her bills, when her head is already below the water line, how on earth is she expected to get the €65 together? That is what this boils down to.

The Tánaiste says she took a principled decision on this legislation - my goodness, a principled decision - to put her hand into the pocket of a woman raising a household of small children who does not sleep at night with worry about how she will pay her bills.

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