Margaret Cox (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister. I am glad that someone with her understanding, capability and experience is in charge of the Department of Social and Family Affairs.

The Department's former title "Social Welfare" did not suit it because its work involves family, inclusion and looking after the people at the core of society who need our help. The Ireland in which we want to live is one that caters for everybody and gives them an opportunity to move out of poverty and begin providing for themselves. I have often heard people say that not enough people have medical cards. We should ensure that people do not need medical cards. What can we do to ensure that people do not need unemployment assistance? How can we help them escape the poverty trap and ensure that women, children and the elderly, who, because they do not have enough money, are dependent on welfare payments from the State, do not suffer?

The real challenge, as we move through these difficult global economic times, is creating, maintaining and developing a plan for the future so that we can continue to see a growth in people's ability to fend for themselves and their families. It must be a great feeling to collect a pay packet every week for work one has done instead of going down to the dole office to collect unemployment benefit or assistance. Everyone wants to provide for his or her family and not be dependent on handouts. My vision is that we should look after our old people and recognise the contribution they have made to the State over the years. We should also look after our children and the most vulnerable in society and tackle the causes of problems instead of continuing to pay out money. We should tackle the causes of alcohol and drug abuse, help people in unhappy marriages and help children deal with changes in societal and familial structures and the difficulties to which such changes lead. That is the way Ireland should be in the future.

Senator Cummins said he accepted that choices had to be made, which is true. The challenge for Opposition parties is to tell us what choices they would have made. What would they have done? Would they have tackled the issue of child benefit?