Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would be the first to acknowledge that these increases, which are the first increases after we increased both the Christmas bonus and the living alone allowance in last year's budget, are modest, but it is important that we prioritise people like pensioners.

In this year's budget, in last year's budget and in every budget we have provided an extra €200 million a year in social welfare spending for the extra number of people coming up to pension age and the extra number of people who are receiving, for instance-----

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