Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy is correct when she says we have choices. Everyone in the House has choices. The estimated cost is around €600 million. We also want to increase domiciliary care allowance and other categories of social protection, which the Minister will bring to the Government in the first instance and then the measures will be announced on budget day. It will all come under an overall amount that will be allocated to the Department of Social Protection. If we increase one category, by definition other categories may not get a similar increase or may not get an increase at all. We have to balance this and that is why it will be done incrementally.

We have made significant improvements in the disregards in the past two to three years and that should be acknowledged. However, we want to go faster now in moving to a position where we can eliminate the means test in its entirety.

The commitment is like that in the Social Democrats manifesto, which I looked at before I came in. It did not say that this would be done in one budget. It indicated that it would be done over the lifetime of the Government.

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