Mary Henry (Independent)

I thank Senator Norris for sharing his time with me. I echo his remarks about money for overseas development aid. I regret that it was not possible to see the contribution increased and I hope that the Minister involved will do the best he can to fight his corner for development aid.

I welcome the aid given to the disabled although I regret the provisions will take so long to implement. We will also have many more disabled people surviving year on year thanks to the improvements in medicine.

With such a formidable person as Senator White in the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party I felt sure that child care would have been adequately dealt with in this budget. I speak in particular as the president of One Family, formerly Cherish. Senator White is quite right when she says it is essential that we have adequate child care to get people off social welfare and back into the workforce. While I welcome the increase given to single mothers, to do anything in line with the Government's action plan against poverty and social exclusion, and Sustaining Progress, much greater increases would have to be given in this budget. The budget should have increased child income support to €149.90 per month for the first and second child and to €185 for the third and subsequent children. The current levels are much too low for the plan to come into being.

There is also the problem of income support for one parent families, which is less than €150 per week. We all talk about obesity in children but, as Owen Keenan of Barnardos pointed out to me the other day, many children are malnourished and go to school hungry. Many of them come from these families. While they have been given something, they have not been given enough. We must break that cycle of poverty and having read the Government's excellent manifesto, I thought that was what it wanted to do.

It is important we try to make sure people retain secondary benefits. The figure has been frozen at €317.40 per week since 1994, but they should have been increased to over €400 per week. Medical cards for all children would make a huge difference. While I welcome what is in the budget, I very much regret the situation regarding child care. It is disastrous for women. Nothing has happened for years. I will have to rely on Senator White who, I am sure, will keep after the Minister for Finance to do something about it as soon as possible.