Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I thank the Senators who spoke and made such detailed and thoughtful contributions. I appreciate that people from all political parties have acknowledged the reality of the very difficult financial situation in which the country finds itself. As stated earlier, events in the eurozone may make the difficulties with which we must deal even more intense.

It is not generally well known but Senators will appreciate that the process by which the Government arrived at decisions on both the spending and taxation aspects of the budget involved carrying out a comprehensive review of expenditure. This is the first occasion on which such a review has been engaged in. Reviews of this nature have been carried out in the United Kingdom, Canada and Holland and involve examining all items of expenditure and tabling options for each of them. The options for the three big spending Departments, namely, the Departments of Social Protection, Health and Education and Skills, which account for over 80% of Government spending, were not focused on increasing expenditure but rather on reducing it. These options have been published on the websites of the various Departments and if people have the time, they should take the opportunity to peruse them.

In the context of the available options, not everyone appreciates the importance of free travel to retired individuals. The options tabled and the additional options suggested by the Department of Finance were, in many ways, very difficult to contemplate. Those who do not work in the area of social welfare do not often appreciate the importance of respite allowances or carer's allowance. I went home on many evenings during the past 12 weeks and sat and thought about how we might reduce the level of cuts as much as possible from the original figure of over €800 million. There was a need examine this matter, not so much from the perspective of the individuals for whom the incomes to which I refer are so important but rather from that of an economist or someone who works in the Department of Finance. I focused, therefore, on the importance of the spend of my Department to the economy. I was eventually able to persuade the officials from the Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform that the economy might benefit if we reduced the proposed level of cuts. I emphasised to them the fact that the money provided by my Department in the form of social welfare payments was extremely important to every town and village, shop and business throughout the country. The spending power of pensioners is, for example, extremely important to small shops.

I made a strong economic argument for reducing the level of the cuts proposed and appreciate the robust, personal arguments made by all of the Senators who contributed on the importance of social welfare payments. It would be of great assistance to the Dáil, the Seanad and the various committees — a number of Senators referred to this — if the options to which I refer were published very early on in order that people might gain a sense of the ballpark figures involved and also an indication of the likely levels of expenditure and tax receipts.

It must be borne in mind that there is a particular equation which influences the social welfare system, namely, that there are people at work who pay tax and PRSI and that there are others who depend — body and soul — on the incomes made available to them by my Department. We must consider, in the context of this equation, how a balance might be achieved and how reform might proceed. In the future it would be of assistance to everyone if information on the options to which I refer was made available. I am sure the people in the Bundestag who got the information about the budget discussions in Ireland were scratching their heads when they heard that was not available in advance to Irish parliamentarians. In any reform of the Dáil and Seanad we should have capacity to debate the options.

In the budget, and since I became Minister, I have been conscious of low-income people who are in work but not in receipt of social welfare payments. I remind Senators that we had a long debate here, supported by every Member, to raise the minimum wage. We also had in this budget a reduction in the universal social charge as it affects the lowest levels of income, which is important. It is important to keep those two positives in perspective as we examine what were difficult choices in the social welfare budget.