Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail)

I fully appreciate the context of this motion. I agree with the Sinn Féin Senators that legislation which has a financially negative impact on households should be poverty proofed. All legislation should be poverty proofed and perhaps that has happened in this situation. I am not sure, but I doubt that the Department of Social Protection has poverty proofed this Bill. Last night the Minister for Finance stated that the Minister for Social Protection consulted widely before she made the decision to reduce the disability allowance from €188 to €77. I wonder how wide that consultation was, because I know, from talking to the representatives of a number of disability organisations, that they were not consulted, nor were families consulted.

We have to get serious. That is not a criticism of this Government. It refers to any Government, whether it is made up of Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or the Labour Party. In challenging economic times, we have to look at who we are targeting with taxation measures that impact on individuals. In particular, we should look at this when a taxation measure contains very little discretion in respect of exemptions and waivers, as is currently outlined in this Bill.

Senator Norris has gone through the 11 item index from the ESRI criteria. Many of them make sense. There are many families out there who would struggle to meet some of those requirements, be they the two pairs of shoes or the warm overcoat. I am glad to hear that Senator Norris got a very good deal. If we are looking out for a deal, it is good to know we can consult him. Let us take the example of nos. (vi) and (vii) of the amendment, which refer to going without heating during the last year through lack of money, and keeping the home adequately warm. These examples are more justified today than they were this day last week. The person who is in receipt of fuel allowance will be losing about €100 per year on that payment as a result of Monday's budget, as the window for such a payment is being reduced from 32 to 26 weeks. That person is now being asked to pay the €100 household charge, so the net loss to such a person is €200. We have to take this kind of thing into consideration.

We have gone down a different route with our amendments, which contain specific categories of people who are exempt, such as those who are in receipt of the old age non-contributory pension, those on jobseeker's allowance, supplementary welfare and so on. We will get to those categories in a later section.

I agree with the principle of this amendment. We should consider what is happening to families under great financial pressure at the moment. I find it difficult to extend agreement to the level of income referred to, €75,000, because Senators earn approximately €60,000. This would mean we would be exempt and that would not be right. If one had ten children and vast borrowings and negative equity it would be a different issue.

We have discussed the issue of negative equity. An income of €75,000 or €60,000 for a single person with one property and no financial outgoings in terms of family and so forth, is fine. It would be unfair to expect that person to receive a waiver while others under more pressure do not. I suggest revisiting that part of the amendment but we should consider the rest of it, which, in principle, we have no difficulty in supporting.