Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I hope the Minister of State will be here in the Seanad after the next election. Setting all the other cuts aside, no one can tell me that the abolition of the telephone allowance was the correct decision. The Minister of State said when explaining the abolition of the bereavement grant that families can always go to community welfare officers. I suggest that the period after a loved one has died is not a lovely time for family members to be going to a community welfare officer with their hands out seeking some assistance with funeral arrangements. The bereavement grant and the telephone allowance were there, but this Fine Gael-Labour Party Government got rid of them. Those are the facts.

These amendments would tie any future Government into reviewing of the household benefits package and the treatment packages. I have given some specific examples. We will not agree on this issue. I would like to clarify that I was not rubbishing the Tánaiste. I was saying that after the reviews we are calling for have been carried out, we will know whether I was talking rubbish or the Tánaiste was talking rubbish. That was all I said. It was no personal slight on the Tánaiste. Maybe I should have referred to knowing whether the Tánaiste was correct or I was correct. That might suit the Minister of State better. It is good of him to protect his party leader. We intend to push these amendments because we believe the reviews we are seeking should be provided for in this Bill. We are pursuing them regardless of whether the Minister of State believes they would be appropriate to the Bill.