Seanad debates

Wednesday, 25 November 2015

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2015: Second Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Kevin HumphreysKevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Specific questions were asked about statistics. I will have those checked and my officials will send them to Senator Quinn, in particular, if we have them, in a timely manner. Last year, we introduced a neutral budget and gave a little back contrary to what many economists said. Five years ago, on all the programmes I saw or heard, every professional who had an economics qualification was telling us we would need another bailout, unemployment would continue to shoot up and we would not see employment figures like we are seeing now.They were not talking about an unemployment rate of 15% - 15.1% was the rate it topped out at - but of a rate of 20%.

I always enjoy Senator Mooney's contributions. They can be a mixture of constructive criticism and downright criticism. The Senator should read what is contained in his party's pre-budget submission on many of the areas to which he referred, especially pensions. I would have liked for us to have been able to give pensioners more than a €5 increase but the Government's package of measures far exceeds a €5 increase. The only submission that was made in regard to pensioners was about the €5 increase. No submission was made with regard to the fuel allowance. One of the red herrings some of the Senator's party colleagues raised was that the free travel benefit would be abolished. That is a timely claim that the Senator's party has raised during the past five years. In contrast we put an additional €3 million into the free travel scheme to ensure such provision is secure into the future. I know the Senator would gladly acknowledge that we did that in spite of his party's policies. When Deputy O'Dea made a similar speech to the Senator's in the Dáil, I went through the measures item by item but I would not put the Senator through that. He remarked that everything cannot be fixed at once and I accept that. It has taken five years to fix the economy following the economic crash.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.