Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

As public representatives, we cannot ask that social welfare payments be protected while people's incomes are decreasing. There must be a correlation between the two. I would rather be a Minister for Social and Family Affairs who could give significant increases, but those were the days in which people's incomes were increasing and the Exchequer received considerable tax revenue. It is no longer the case that money is available to the State. We must be cognisant of the fact that those workers who are supporting their families despite wage cuts and large mortgage repayments should be better off than people on social welfare. It is an issue of competitiveness.

I would have viewed the figure supplied in the letter to be an underestimate. If I remember correctly, a medical card has a value of €500, but its value to a couple with four children would be higher, given initial pharmacy bills of €100 per month. Devising our budgets to protect the most vulnerable while encouraging people into the workforce is challenging. The Bill tries to provide for the €21 billion that is required to pay for social welfare and to protect the vulnerable who are dependent on it. It also takes new initiatives, namely, the early child care scheme, encouraging people into enterprise and education, ensuring rent supplement does not dictate the market and protecting workers in defined benefit schemes to some degree. As with everything the Government does, it is a balancing act and a matter of difficult choices. While it is difficult to make decisions in these times, the situation is more difficult for families who are suffering and the more than 384,000 people on the live register. They are my prime concern and are the reason for this Bill. I thank Senators for their consideration.