Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, is certainly in the hot seat. People in Roscommon do not expect much in the way of commitments being met by the Government, given that the promises made to Deputies Frank Feighan and Denis Naughten by the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, and the Taoiseach and to Senator John Kelly by the Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, on the retention of the accident and emergency department at Roscommon County Hospital, were broken. We are, therefore, not surprised at all.

The last election was bought by advertisements such as the Fine Gael - Every Little Hurts campaign. Although Labour said it would fight against cuts to child benefit, it has brought in those very cuts. In his homily on 9 December, the parish priest for Kiltoom and Cam, Fr. John Cullen, said the cut to the carer's respite grant was the most unfair. In an article in last week's Sunday Independent, a former colleague, Niall Ó Brolcháin, along with his wife Niamh and son Cianán, explained what a cut of ¤325 meant for them. This is not a justifiable cut. We are appealing to the Minister, who I know is concerned about this issue, to come up with some solution to this matter.