Minister says Budget shows a real commitment to caring

Increases in social welfare payments have ranged from 57 per cent to 71 per cent since 1996 for the majority of people receiving a diet supplement, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, told the Dáil.

This, she said, contrasted with the cost of food, which, according to the Consumer Price Index, had risen by 28 per cent. "Consequently, the gap that the diet supplement was intended to address has narrowed over time."

Ms Coughlan said that in future diet supplements would be based on the current cost of special diets, the current income of claimants and the premise that one should not have to pay more than one-third of income on food.

"All current recipients will continue to receive the amount they currently get until such time as there is a change in his or her circumstances that would warrant a review of the supplement."

She said the rent supplement would continue to be available to people with housing needs whose safety or well-being was at risk, such as people with disabilities, the elderly or those experiencing severe social problems.

The measures would not affect people who were on local authority waiting lists, even if renting for less than six months; the homeless as defined by the local authority under the Housing Act; those already tenants for six months; and those currently receiving rent supplement.

She said the Budget provisions would result in a record of €11.2 billion being spent on social welfare next year. It represented a real commitment to caring and supporting. It would be the largest amount of money ever expended on social welfare in the history of the State.

The Sinn Féin Dáil leader, Mr CaoimhghíÓ Caoláin, said social welfare increases and alleged tax benefits for the lower paid had already been eaten up by welfare cuts and stealth taxes.

The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, "had done nothing to reform, nothing to target the highest earners, nothing to tackle multimillionaire tax exiles or tax evasion". There would be more people on the higher rate of PAYE after the Budget.

"This Budget has again spurned the Fianna Fáil promise to extend medical cards to a further 200,000 people because it was totally silent on health."

He claimed the Budget was "an empty package wrapped in tinsel paper marked decentralisation". The decentralisation announcement was not a Budget measure but something which had been promised by Mr McCreevy every year since 1999.

"The surprised reaction of trade union representatives is ominous. The Fianna Fáil backbenchers who have been given this shiny present by Santa McCreevy might well find that the shine will go off it after the June local elections."

The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, said the Government was implementing a bold and immediate programme of full-scale decentralisation. "No government in the history of the State has made such a bold move on this scale for the regions. It is a key part of our economic strategy for fairness and prosperity for all the people of Ireland."