Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----the Minister for Social Protection has not been in a position to listen to her party's backbenchers. We had an opportunity to discuss some matters relating to the budget last evening. As one of my colleagues stated in the Dáil yesterday, this budget is anti-women and anti-children. It is particularly anti-children in the context of the ¤10 cut in child benefit for the first two children. That cut is simply inhuman, as is the taxing of maternity benefit and the reduction in the back to school allowance. Fine Gael and Labour Party Senators could not have had an input into the budget because I have worked with them all and I am aware that the measures to which I refer have not been thought out. I remind Members that Fianna Fáil's pre-budget submission contained the same ¤3.5 billion-----