This is a socially balanced budget. The Government's total commitment to the weaker sections of our society is indicated clearly by the three objectives the Minister for Finance outlined at the beginning of his Budget Statement, namely, to protect the weaker sections of society, to invest in the future and to secure stable public finances to safeguard gains already made. As I listened to Opposition comments stating that welfare recipients had not been looked after in this budget, I recalled the 1970s and 1980s when I worked in the then Department of Social Welfare. People lined up in the rain in extremely long queues in order to sign on at unemployment exchanges. Those days are gone.