David Norris (Independent)

I felt it was a mistake. We should all support the Minister in trying to get an easement of this situation. I understand that political parties would wish to do that and to exploit a situation but my concern is not with partisan advantage in which I have no interest anyway, apart from the fact that it would not benefit me one way or the other — I am quite open about it. The real nub of the question is the widows who are involved.

I am very grateful that the Minister opened up the question of the McHugh case — I referred to it as McKeown but it is McHugh. What she did not refer to — I acknowledge they were not supplied to her with the papers — were the very trenchant comments of the judges in the Supreme Court. I cannot remember the exact words of the judgment but they said it was mean, cowardly, unjustifiable and immoral. They used an extraordinary collection of adjectives to describe what the Government was then doing and the principle is exactly the same. That was found initially to be unconstitutional.

In my view, it is wrong to try to redress a situation with subsequent legislation. In my opinion, as a lay person — I am not a lawyer but I am extremely litigious — I would imagine that if a principle was found to be unconstitutional in one case and the Minister has produced a similar new legislative form, if it was tested in the courts it would be found to be unconstitutional again, as it was in the McHugh case and I do not think that has been completely addressed.

To deal with the other arguments made by the Minister, I accept there have been massive improvements. I remember the situation — I am in my sixtieth year to Heaven, as the poet, Dylan Thomas, would say — and I have seen in my lifetime massive improvements due to the work of the voluntary agencies, the Civil Service and Ministers of different complexions. However, as I understand the argument now being made by the Minister, it seems to rely almost on numbers, that there is a small number of people involved. I may be misinterpreting the Minister but she stated that there is only a small number of widows still working. I do not think it matters. If there are only five of them it would still be an injustice. An injustice is an injustice that attaches to the individual. I have never been impressed by a numbers game and it makes it worse because there is less sense of collegial grouping around the people who are victimised.

The Minister is isolating a tiny number of people. Her figures state that only a small number of widows are also working but then why does she persecute them? It is like the blasted tax laws. They go after the unfortunate little creatures who made some kind of an error and they let Goodman and all the rest of them skite off with unpaid tax bills of various kinds. It is dreadful. The Minister stated that only 7% have child dependants. That is a numbers game argument. Does it mean that one can be unjust to a number below 10%? The Minister seems to accept that there is a problem with the7% but she is saying that she has looked after 93%. It would be a good day's work to look after the 7%. The point has been made, which I regard as reasonable, that although we understand we are in a period when the Government collectively has decided it is in the best interests of the nation that there should be a cutback in public expenditure, and that is a wise decision, we need to be careful where the cutbacks fall. In a situation where the amount of saving is——