Mary Ann O'Brien (Independent)

The Government is allowing the payment of increments to continue, at a cost of approximately €250 million. Since 2007 they have amounted to €1.26 billion. I assure the Minister that in the private sector I am not aware of any increments being paid.

Regarding the Minister's proposed changes to disability allowance, previously the word "pause" was used. That word makes me feel very nervous because if a machine in my factory pauses, I have engineers to fix it and it will move again and everything will go back to normal. In respect of the events of the last week, I would have much preferred if we had used words such as "absolute"——