Marie Moloney (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and thank her for dedicating so much of her time to the House this week to discuss this Bill. I commend her on her achievement in reducing the adjustment in the social protection budget to €290 million from €440 million. A total of €220 million of this will impact on recipients, which is almost half of what was sought, and this is critically important. Despite all the pressure for a €440 million reduction, the Minister fought successfully to reduce it by half and this is clear evidence of the work of a Labour Party Minister in government.

One cannot expect to take €220 million out of the social protection budget without pain. There is no doubt difficult and painful measures have had to be incorporated into this Bill but we must bear in mind that social protection accounts for 40% of the Exchequer budget. Spending reductions could not, therefore, have been avoided in this area. While hard decisions have had to be made, the Bill contains positive measures. Last year, the Minister said she would not make any further cuts to child benefit until safe and affordable child care is in place. She has been true to her word by not implementing further reductions to child benefit and she has once again protected core social welfare payments.

I would like to highlight a number of beneficial measures that are being introduced such as the €14 million allocation to a youth guarantee fund and the extension of the school meals programme to almost 200,000 disadvantaged school children. The current spend is €37 million per annum, which was increased by €2 million in this year's budget, and the scheme will be extended in the coming year.

While the €100 jobseeker's allowance payment is being extended to the age of 26, I remind Senator Mooney that his party introduced that rate first.