Dan Boyle (Green Party)

This is the reality. In making the difficult decisions that have had to be made, the Government has had to be conscious of the fact that to continue the level of public expenditure in which it was engaged would mean increased levels of borrowing, which would send signals to those from whom we are borrowing that due to the repayments on those borrowings and the increasing cost of interest we would have less money to provide for social protection in the future. In terms of morality and conscience, people need to talk about sustainability, because if the immediate future is one in which less resources are available, then we are talking about not a 4% decrease but a manifold decrease in the money available for social protection in this country. That is what we need to debate. If we keep going down the road we have been going down, there will not be resources to provide what the State should provide. That is where my conscience lies, and where the conscience and morality of my party and my party colleagues lie on those issues.

Every effort has been made to avoid many of the difficult decisions. Pensioners have been exempted. Pensioners who are in receipt of carer's payment have been exempted. The respite care grant payments and half-rate payments have been protected.