Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have a different view and we evaluated the provision carefully. Our priority in social protection measures is to maintain the level of the base rates of payment. A lot of things were given when times were better. When there was a lot of money around Finance Ministers had a certain amount of largesse to distribute, sometimes for worthy causes and other times to simply buy votes in the run-in to elections. When one examines the provisions to make savings then one must make choices. The choices that we made were that where there were extras which are difficult to justify, the priority was to maintain basic rates of welfare.

The position with the maternity benefit is that right across the public sector, women who are having a baby get fully paid and the maternity benefit is additional. The way it works is that the employer adjusts down the salary and the amount of maternity benefit makes up the same gross salary. As the maternity benefit is not subject to income tax the net position of all public servants who are on maternity leave is that they have more money when they are on maternity than if they were at work. In the private sector that varies quite a bit. Some private sector employers do not pay salaries when women are on maternity leave. If that is the case then probably many of the women do not pay tax either so get the full benefit of their maternity benefit. It depends on how much of their tax credits they will use up in the year in question. There are varying impacts.

Overall, in terms of having to make very difficult choices, this is one that we made and I know that some people disagree with it. That is the situation. The full yield in a year is about ¤40 million. Do Senators remember how divided they were here when debating the Social Welfare Bill, particularly an issue that amounted to ¤26 million? The vote was very close and all of the Taoiseach's nominees voted against it. That legislation dealt with about ¤26 million. When one must make a choice like this there is quite a lot of money involved. We have tried to be fair, not to be hard on any particular sector and to be even-handed. When choices like this must be made then maintaining the basic rates of welfare is the priority.