David Norris (Independent)

I strongly support what Senator Cummins said. This is a mean-minded proposal. Will the Minister tell the House what is the motivation and the morality behind it? What is the reasoning and justification for it? Is it merely tidying up in order to save certain small sums of money, and they are pathetically small? The editorial in yesterday's Irish Independent said it is taking away the widows' mite. It really is a mean cut.

While I agree with Senator Cummins, it is a little unrealistic to say that the Government Members will speak against this cut and then vote with the Government on it. Of course they will do that. This happens with every Government and every party; it is not simply a characteristic of Fianna Fáil. Regrettably, this is the way the House works. Rather than offending our friends on the Government benches by calling them names, we should be telling them to work as hard as they can to get this changed.

We all know what is wrong. The Minister has acute political antennae and I have no doubt that she can detect the feeling among Government Members. This cut attacks the most vulnerable people in society. These are not scroungers. I saw elderly women talking about this on television. They, or their husbands, worked all their lives and paid their contributions. It is terrible that it should be taken away.

I remember getting slight amelioration in a case like this where it too was horribly mean-minded. A brilliant student from the north midlands was due to go to college. He was blind and received a county council grant to pursue a PhD in history. The student was also in receipt of a blind pension and the amount of the education grant was subtracted from this or vice versa. He was told he could not have both full allowances. Why not? While it seems reasonable that everyone should get a low level of support, if an individual deserves a little extra he or she should be allowed to have it. The Minister was able to bend the rules for the case I outlined. The same thing should happen here.

The Minister for Finance told the Dáil that lawyers at the tribunals earn more at the expense of the State in three days than a widow gets in a year. Under the Constitution we are supposed to be a Christian country. If one wanted to use perverse logic, one could take the inexplicable passage from the New Testament: to those who have shall be given and from those who have not shall be taken away even that which they have. I have never understood what it means. Perhaps the Minister feels it is her Christian duty to punch widows in the eye and rob their handbags. This is more or less what is happening and it is dreadful. The Minister for Finance knows this too; otherwise it was shameless for him to say what he did in the Dáil.

The case of a widow, Susan McHugh, has been referred to on several occasions recently and appears to have escaped the notice of the Department. She took a case against similar legislation that went to the Supreme Court. The court decided against the Department. When a measure such as this was constitutionally shown to be inappropriate and wrong, it is extraordinary that we should be trying to introduce something similar again.

I know the Minister has a sophisticated response to the issue of partners in gay relationships and therefore I will make my point briefly. While the legal apparatus of the State has determined that discrimination exists, the response of the Government is not to address the discrimination directly, but to cure it by legislative sleight of hand. For those reasons, it is bad in principle.

Based on my own instincts, I am sure the Minister is under pressure from other Departments. Instead of making party political points we should all support her in doing the right thing. I know she wants to do the right thing. I also know that my decent friends on the Government benches want her to do the right thing.