Joe O'Reilly (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Some points merit repetition. The core social welfare rates were maintained right through the recession. That is an achievement of the Tánaiste and the Government. Free travel was protected. The respite care grant has been fully restored to €1,700 and it was never less than approximately €1,400. Two weeks of paternity leave have been introduced. A modest but incremental increase has begun for the old age pension. Up to 75% of the Christmas bonus has been restored. Family income supplement has increased by €5 per week. The list goes on. The living alone allowance has been increased by €9 a week. School meals are of the utmost importance and an extra €3 million has been allocated for their provision. A second year of preschool care has been provided. One can see a complete package of welfare achievements by the Government in the midst of the deepest recession. That is the ultimate yardstick by which people with proper critical faculties will assess the performance of the Government and the role of the Tánaiste when they will look at the confidence motion tonight. There is no escaping those realities.

One of the great achievements of the Tánaiste in office and of the Government is that we have moved from a system whereby the traditional, paternalistic payment to jobseekers sentenced people to indefinite dependency to one where a support payment and a support system are provided through Intreo to support people to get from unemployment to work. Not only do we have the enormous record of creating in excess of 125,000 new jobs during our period in government and are currently creating approximately 1,000 a week, but we have the equally important achievement that those people who are now on jobseeker's benefit get a holistic approach and they are met by all the relevant agencies and given training, support and encouragement to get on programmes that lead to employment. All that is at a time when the minimum wage has been increased by the Government and the universal social charge has been reduced.

There has been a set of strategies to fix the public finances and change the situation when we came into office where we were spending approximately €50 billion to €51 billion a year and only bringing in €31 billion a year in income. We transformed the situation radically, corrected the public finances and put people in good employment, while at the same time maintaining the core social welfare system, core payments and supports.

There was nothing as radical, transformative or effective in bringing about social fairness and equality in our society as the introduction of the free second year of early childhood education. I live next door to a wonderful Montessori school and creche and see cars pulling up and people walking in with their buggies in the morning. The parents who come and drop their young children are from all social classes, income groups and parts of the village. They come to that centre and drop off their children who attend free for a very important part of the day. The period under the scheme will be increased to two years. That is the record of the Tánaiste. That is what is relevant and what will be assessed by people outside the House rather than cynical posturing inside it.

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