Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The €3 pension increase is a case of doing something in order to claim the Government cares, rather than to acknowledge the real issue. The Taoiseach should go out and speak to the pensioners. They will be insulted and angry at this. The reason is the €1,200 that was taken from them in the last two to three years and the flat taxes and charges that were levied, including property tax and water charges, with no connection to ability to pay. There was the abolition of the telephone rental scheme, cuts to fuel allowance, the change to the household benefit schemes and the medical prescription charge increasing to €25 a month. All of these had a savagely corrosive impact on the weekly pension. That is what people will tell him.

The Government also removed 16,000 people over 70 years of age from the medical card scheme.

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