Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

—and listened to people who need supplementary welfare allowance. The people whom I meet and who need supplementary welfare allowance are very vulnerable. They are not people who are ripping off the system. They do not want to ask for it but are in need of support. Clearly the Minister and her Government colleagues do not see it this way.

The notion that if one partner in a couple is in full-time employment both are excluded from claiming rent or mortgage supplement suggests that one income is enough to support a household. However, the Minister should consider some of the low incomes people are now earning. Even in the public service people are earning very low incomes and are expected to live in an increasingly expensive society made more expensive by the stealth taxes that are being piled on every day to such an extent that the Society of St. Vincent de Paul says its new clients are finding it increasingly difficult to keep body and soul together despite being earners.