Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to be associated with the Minister’s concluding remarks in respect of the staff in the Department.

I detect a certain defensiveness in the Minister’s speech. She is challenging us, saying how dare we vote against this Social Welfare Bill 2015 and how dare we oppose the huge largesse she is distributing to the poorest and neediest in society. The Minister’s approach seems to be the one adopted by the famous playwright, Noël Coward, who once said, “I can take any amount of criticism so long as it is unqualified praise”.

The more I listen to the Minister the more I am driven to conclude that she has very little empathy with, and less understanding of, the poorest and neediest people in this country. After all, we know from advance excerpts from a book about to be published that she objected strenuously to taking on the responsibilities of the Department of Social Protection. She was, we are told, consumed with anger when she was offered this lowly post. She wanted to be strutting her stuff on the world stage. According to the book, she promised Deputy Gilmore that he would regret the day he put her into the Department of Social Protection. That is one promise she kept.

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