Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy must bear in mind that our social welfare system is among the strongest in Europe and the effect of social transfers in Ireland is to reduce the risk of poverty for children and adults right down to one of the lowest figures in Europe. It is a great tribute to all the parties in this House that we have broad agreement that social welfare and income support for families, particularly families with children, should be as strong as it is, notwithstanding the enormous difficulties we inherited when we took over office from Fianna Fáil, with an economy in ruins and employment destroyed. We have now got back to a situation where, I am happy to say, the economy is growing and is one of the strongest in Europe, where hundreds of thousands of people are back at work and, thankfully, people are returning who previously, unfortunately, emigrated after Fianna Fáil crashed the country. They are now on their way back and-----

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