The Taoiseach may not get much support from this side of the House but he is getting more from us than from those behind him.

Yesterday the Taoiseach dismissed the impact of cuts of €58 million in the social welfare allocation that will affect the most defenceless in our society at the same time as he increased the allocation to the horse racing industry to €67 million. I remind the Taoiseach about what happened on 23 May 1997. That day, the leader of the Progressive Democrat Party, the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Harney, launched the PD programme where she stated that she would stop the rent allowance to lone parents. On 24 May, the Taoiseach, as leader of Fianna Fáil disabused her of the notion. He said that Fianna Fáil would not wear the idea in Government and would continue the policies of the rainbow Government to facilitate lone parents into employment.

Six years later, the Progressive Democrats have achieved their objective, with rent allowance and rent supplement effectively stopped. The new hurdles are insurmountable for most people who cannot get public housing. The transitional half rate social welfare payment and back to education allowance for access to third level education have been effectively stopped for lone parents. The Minister for Social and Family Affairs has a list with 13 other cuts. The Progressive Democrats got their way.

The purpose of the transitional payment was to facilitate the entry into the workforce of lone parents and the purpose of the back to education allowance was to help them into education and, thence, into work. What has happened? The changes that have been made will keep those people at home or force them into mobile homes in the back garden or on to the streets. Instead of encouraging people to better themselves and raise their families from the poverty line, the Government is, as the president of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Mr. John Monaghan, said, encouraging poverty traps by keeping lone parents in circumstances where they cannot get back into the workforce.

Those are only three of the 16 cuts made by the Minister for Social and Family Affairs under this left of centre Taoiseach. The only centre he is left of is the Punchestown centre, which certainly came from left field in a ready up between the Minister for Agriculture and Food and the Minister for Finance.

Whatever I said in 1997, people will remember the record of the then leader of Deputy Rabbitte's party who had the only opportunity since the foundation of the State—

Which party?

One of his parties. The smallest average rise in the lowest social welfare rates ever was under the rainbow Government when the Deputy's party gave a weekly increase of €2.74, compared with an average weekly increase of €7 by this Government.

What has that to do with it? The Taoiseach should answer the question.

I know that upsets the Labour Party, that is why it will not allow me to speak.

Deputy Rabbitte took twice the allotted time to make his contribution and he had the courtesy of silence in the House. He is entitled to hear a reply and the Taoiseach is entitled to make his reply without interruption. The Chair will insist on this.

The 2004 Estimates are framed to stay within overall spending guidelines. The Minister has achieved an increase of €355 million. She has pointed out that across the Estimate for the Department of Social and Family Affairs, reductions of €51 million are possible out of an estimated total spend of €10.65 billion.

Those are cuts.

That is an increase of €355 million. Deputy Rabbitte stated that the Government is trying to reduce the rent supplements.

It is trying to end them.

The numbers claiming rent supplements have increased to 60,000 people at a cost of €330 million per year.

That is because of the housing crisis.

Due to the increased demand on certain schemes, improved payments and, most importantly, the need to ensure prudent management of the social welfare budget, a number of schemes have been reviewed and adjusted.

We have heard that already.

The Minister for Social and Family Affairs will give a detailed account of those areas today. The minimum contribution that all recipients of supplementary rent allowance and mortgage supplements are required to make towards their accommodation will be increased by €1 per week to €13. The supplementary welfare allowance is not payable to those in full-time employment. In future, as the Minister has pointed out, if one of a couple is in full-time employment, both are excluded from claiming for rent or a mortgage.

That is a poverty trap.

It will put people on to the streets.

The Minister has outlined other areas where there are small cuts. Payments to lone parents will be replaced in the transitional period by the family income supplement and this will not affect anyone receiving less than €294.

The family income supplement has been cut.

The idea that this is hitting people at the lowest rates is not true. I cannot give all the details in two minutes, but the Government will continue to look after those on the lowest social welfare rates. Any changes the Minister makes will move money from the higher levels to the lower levels so that, even with unemployment at 4.4%, at half the European average and far lower than in any other country, we are continuing this year to devote record resources to social welfare, as we have done every year since 1997.

It is very difficult to deal with someone who denies the facts before him. The Minister said on radio that she made cuts of €58 million because she was required by the Minister for Finance to do so.

I did not say that.

The Taoiseach is now using words like "review" and "adjustment". These are not reviews or adjustments. These are real cuts, and the Taoiseach knows that very well. There is no point in talking about the number of people who are now benefiting from rent allowance or rental supplement. The reason is that the social housing provision is entirely inadequate. These are people who cannot qualify for social housing because the houses are not available. The Taoiseach has now done what the leader of the Progressive Democrats tried to get him to do in 1997, and he has made 13 other cuts on top of that.

Why are the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the Children's Rights Alliance and other organisations drawing to the Taoiseach's attention the fact that he is re-encouraging the creation of poverty traps if there have not been real cuts? There have been real cuts not just in terms of the three areas I mentioned but in a range of other areas, including the dietary allowance for people on social welfare, the reduction of 11 weeks for people on unemployment benefit unless they have more than five years' stamps and several other changes. These are real cuts at a time when the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Deputy Walsh, has increased the allocation for the prize fund at the races.

The Deputy does not want to listen to the facts.

We are listening to the people on the ground.

Will the Deputy be quiet for just a minute?

The Taoiseach has lost touch.

Deputy Rabbitte is doing his best; Deputy Ryan should leave him alone. The facts are that €10.65 billion is being spent on social welfare. As the Minister for Social and Family Affairs pointed out, there are small areas where we can tighten up the system and she has loosened up the system in other areas.

The argument on social housing does not wash. We are spending €1.9 billion on social housing. The recent report on the mid-term review stated that we are at the upper end, in terms of what we are doing in that sector of the market, and we are continuing—

Why are the waiting lists increasing – 52,000?

—to make enormous resources available for this scheme right across the rent supplement area. An additional 60,000 people require them and we are putting in those resources.

They are mean, lousy cuts.

The aim is not to have people on rent supplements forever. We are endeavouring to make sure that, in future, claimants of rent supplements will be referred to local authorities for assessment—

There will not be any. The Taoiseach has abolished the scheme.

—of their housing need in a more systematic manner whereby we can assist those people.

The scheme cannot work. It has been abolished.

I do not understand why Deputy Stagg, who has now taken on the job of No. 1 heckler in the House—

Unusually, the Taoiseach is provoking me.

—is trying, single-handedly, to close the racing industry in Kildare and put 25,000 people, mainly from Kildare, out of work. This is a single campaign by a Kildare Deputy to close down the horse business in Kildare, and he is doing that very effectively.

The Taoiseach is ridiculous.

It is extraordinary that a Kildare man wants to put 25,000 people on the dole. Obviously he has no support from the racing industry—

Magnier does not vote for me anyway.

—but he is totally opposed to employment and he wants to put these people on the dole.

I ask the Taoiseach to give way to Deputy Ó Caoláin.

I cannot understand why Deputy Stagg is so persistent about putting these people in Kildare on the dole.

Deputy Stagg pays his taxes.

When the Deputy's party was on this side of the House it increased the old age pension by €1.50.

Minister, I ask you to allow Deputy Ó Caoláin to speak without interruption.

I suppose Alex Ferguson needs the money.