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

I will rephrase what I said. There was practically no change.

These are some of the issues we will raise on Committee Stage. As I said, we will not oppose the legislation on Second Stage. I have no intention of opposing increases for people on disability allowance and jobseeker's payments. The one point I will make is these changes only kick in from the end of March whereas the tax changes kick in from 1 January. This is fundamentally inequitable. It means that although the Minister said at the end of her speech that she is giving a €5 a week increase she is not. She is giving an increase of approximately €3.75 per week because it will not kick in until the end of March.

These are the main items. We will be looking more carefully at section 9 and a number of other sections. We will table amendments on Committee Stage in so far as we can. We are still constrained by the crazy rule that we cannot table an amendment that will cost the Exchequer an extra cent because it will be ruled out of order. Within this constraint, while we will not oppose the Bill on Second Stage we will do our very best to make it even better on Committee Stage.

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