I wish to raise an issue which cannot wait until 9 December. A Christmas bonus has been paid to pensioners and others every year since 1980. In the emergency budget of last April, the Government announced that it would abolish the Christmas bonus and that this year, for the first time in almost 30 years, pensioners and others would not receive the relatively small payment which helps them to buy gifts for their grandchildren, and so on. The Government also voted down a Labour Party motion calling for the restoration of the bonus and identifying the way in which the restoration could be paid for.

Since then, many pensioners have hoped the Government would have a change of heart on this matter. Many pensioners have been encouraged in that by Government backbenchers, who have been telling them there would be a change of heart on this issue before Christmas. If there is to be a change of heart it cannot wait until 9 December because administrative arrangements for payment would have to be put in place before that.

Will the Government have a change of heart on the Christmas bonus? Will it be paid to the country's pensioners this Christmas?

It might abolish Christmas.

Unfortunately, we have made the decision. It was a very difficult one and had to be considered in the context of the last budget. We decided we would not be in a position to make that supplementary payment this year. The total cost of the Christmas bonus payment in 2009 was approximately €223 million. The estimated cost for 2010 is €245 million.

In recent years, there have been significant increases in social welfare rates. The Christmas bonus payment was made against a background, in other Administrations, when increases in social welfare payments were very small. When resources were available to the Government, social welfare and pension rates improved significantly, and quite rightly. Those increases were in excess of inflation and were the correct choices at the time.

We are now in a different situation and we must deal with the gap between spending and revenue. The total Exchequer revenue for this year to the end of October is €26 billion and the total social welfare bill is more than €21 billion. That sets the background of what the Government must contend with, apart from public service pay and pensions and the provision of services. In other times we have been able to increase rates and provide for further supplementary payments. It is clear that the availability of another €223 million is not possible in present circumstances.

That is a very mean reply from the Taoiseach. This payment has been made to pensioners every year for 30 years, even in some of the country's most difficult economic years. It is a measure of the mess Fianna Fáil has made of our economy and public finances that for the first time in 30 years pensioners will not get the small bonus which has been paid to them in years past. It adds insult to injury to tell them to live in the past. These people have worked all their lives and this is a relatively small payment.

The Taoiseach's reply contrasts sharply with his more sympathetic approach to the golden ten yesterday. For years into the future, those people will be able to write off the losses on their strange arrangements for buying bank shares by setting them against tax. They get all the comfort from the Government but pensioners, who worked hard to make the country what it was before Fianna Fáil made a hames of it, are told they will not receive the small payment which made Christmas worthwhile for many of them. This is mean and shameful.

Deputy Gilmore was a member of a Government which gave an increase of £1.50 to pensioners, and said it was plenty.

Over two years.

We never cut their benefit.

They never had to consider cuts because their payments were so meagre.

We never took money off them.

The point I make is that when resources were available we, quite rightly, improved welfare and pension rates well beyond inflation.

That was then. This is now.

Even this year, we provided for an increase, despite the difficult financial situation. I accept that people on pensions and welfare have low incomes. However, the cost of living dropped by 6.5% this year——

Not for pensioners.

——and this means the purchasing power of those increases was 10%.

That is not true. The 6.5% includes mortgages.

In real terms, the increase in social welfare payments was 10%. If payment increases by between 3% and 3.8% and the cost of living drops by 6.5%, the real increase is 10%, in a very difficult year.

The Government's record with regard to increases in pension and welfare rates is better than that of any of its predecessors.

He is living in the past.

However, the current situation is this. How do we sustain levels of payment, given the country's finances, now and in the years ahead?

It is not correct to suggest that 35% of the country's total spend can be immune from the situation we face.

We are not saying that.

I would rather it were otherwise but that is not the case, and everyone in the House knows it.

With regard to my treatment of anyone else, I hold no brief for anyone who is involved in wrongdoing, whether in banking or elsewhere.

The Taoiseach has always protected them.

The Minister for Finance will take advice from the Revenue Commissioners in respect of any issue where an avoidance matter is raised with him and deal with it appropriately in the Finance Bill.

There is a write-off of €18 million.

That is what every Minister for Finance has done and this Minister will do no less in that regard.