Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)

-----and brought forward by the Minister, Helen McEntee. The Deputy might not like the fact that a huge number of measures have been taken by this Government to relieve pressure on hard-pressed families. The fact of the matter is that any fair assessment of what is being done shows that this is being done by this Government.

I must say that the Deputy's concern about what is going to happen in the forthcoming budget is misplaced. I assure her that the Government will be placing hard-pressed families at the centre of its deliberations. I look forward to seeing Sinn Féin's budget proposals to see what it is putting forward. I will be interested to see if it will again adopt the measures we introduced previously and which it denigrated when we introduced them.

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