This is the last opportunity we will have to ask questions to the Leader until the Dáil resumes after the recess.

Yesterday I raised the matter of welfare cuts being applied to the blind, carers and the disabled. The total saving is €108 million. The Taoiseach responded by stating expenditure on social welfare was more than €20 billion and that it was necessary to reduce expenditure by €4 billion this year. He made the point that it is very easy for Opposition parties to put forward the view that all such cuts are easy. I have never put forward the proposition that it is easy to make cuts.

What is happening is that, for the first time in 80 years, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs has become the victimiser of victims in that the poorest of the poor are being hit. I received a telephone call this morning from a blind man who told me this is the first time the question of blind people was raised in the House in this context. He also stated the allowance for the training of guide dogs is being cut.

This is the last week before Christmas. The Taoiseach set up the McCarthy group to determine where cuts could be made in the public sector. Fine Gael accepted quite a few of its recommendations. It recommended cuts in administrative expenditure in the Department of the Taoiseach in the order of €17.5 million. It recommended administrative cuts of €88 million in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, €82.8 million in the Department of Finance, €432 million in the Department of Health and Children and the Health Service Executive and €6 million in the Department of Social and Family Affairs. These cuts are not easy to make because they require direct negotiation with the people involved, including back-office staff and administrators.

I have picked the five aforementioned Departments because they demonstrate clearly the administrative cuts recommended by the body the Taoiseach set up. The Taoiseach stated quite rightly yesterday that budgets are about choices. None of them is easy but there is only one correct option when choosing between administrative cuts in any of the five Departments, or in a number of Departments, with a view to making cuts of €108 million, and cuts to the benefits of those who are caring for their loved ones, those who are means-tested for the blind person's pension, and the disabled. The Taoiseach should protect those who are absolutely vulnerable and the poorest of the poor.

With regard to the five Departments, what administrative costs were accepted by the Government arising from the McCarthy recommendations? The Taoiseach set up the McCarthy group. He considered its recommendations and chose the option of cutting the benefits of the blind, carers and the disabled.

I differ from Deputy Kenny in that I do not believe there is a choice between one approach and the other. All expenditure must be reduced and it is being reduced. The administrative budgets are multi-annual, as the Deputy knows. Over the three years of the budgets we will seek to reduce administrative budgets along the lines suggested. We started this process this year. It is not a question of "either or". All areas of expenditure, including social welfare——

Especially social welfare.

Deputy Durkan, please.

It does not matter, it is Christmas time. The fact of the matter is that all social and economic expenditure must be reduced.

The Taoiseach should answer the question.

Therefore, I do not accept the contention that it is a choice between one and the other. We will still have a deficit of €18.8 billion and an Exchequer borrowing requirement next year. The Deputy's proposal that we can sustain social welfare provision at €22 billion in the present circumstances is not an option.

What about those who were not touched?

It must be said candidly to the people that it is not an option.

I find it somewhat amusing that the Taoiseach should contend I am suggesting one could sustain a social welfare budget of €22 billion. I made no such contention.

What is the Deputy saying?

It is a question of choice for the Taoiseach and I contend he made the wrong choice. The way one should attack the welfare issue first is to stimulate employment so that many of the 427,000 people on the live register will be taken off it and return to work. Thus, we will be able to trade our way out of difficulty. The Taoiseach did not adopt this approach in his budget.

I have chosen three areas in the welfare budget as we approach the end of this year. These areas concern carers, the blind and disabled. I am not suggesting one should maintain a social welfare budget of €22 billion because one can reduce that if one provides work. Arising from the recommendations of the McCarthy group, which the Taoiseach established to make such recommendations to him and his colleagues, he made certain choices. With regard to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, including FÁS, in respect of which Department the group recommended administrative cuts of €88 million, the Taoiseach decided to make no administrative cut. Despite all the scandals about overpayments, golden handshakes, superior pensions and worldwide travel, the cut in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment was nil.

That is not true.

There were cars too.

That is a choice the Taoiseach made based on a recommendation received by him from the McCarthy report. He is looking for savings of €108 million out of a budget of €22 billion. He could protect the blind, the disabled and the carers at this time of the year, a time when we are celebrating the Christian ethos we are supposed to have.

There have been no cuts to the administrative budgets of the Departments of Enterprise, Trade and Employment or Social and Family Affairs, a cut of €12 million in the Department of the Taoiseach, €62 million in the Department of Finance and €110 million in the Department of Health and Children. These total €184 million out of a recommended €600 million in administrative cuts. The Taoiseach could have quadrupled the savings in respect of what is required for the disabled, the carers and the blind but he did not do so.

After he leaves the Chamber this morning, the Taoiseach should call his colleagues together and accept the Opposition's claim that there are options. Savings of more than the €108 million in question would have been made if the Government implemented its anti-fraud measures properly or got rid of the quangos Fine Gael has pointed out. If it took the administrative cuts recommended for several Departments, it would have made the savings to allow the blind, the disabled and the carers have some sense of Christian feeling from the Government.

For the first time in 80 years a Government has not just made cuts but cut from the poorest of the poor. It has cut from those who are means-tested, blind, disabled, those who are listening this morning knowing the Government has no intention but of doing them down.

On the last Leaders' Questions for this year, will the Taoiseach go up to his office to give an instruction that these cuts in the allowances for the disabled, carers and the blind be reversed? I have given him three opportunities as to how he can do so.

Hear, hear.

I have explained to Deputy Kenny that he is inaccurate in what he has claimed. The administrative cut in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment amounted to €46 million. I do not have the specific details but the idea there will be no cuts in administration is ridiculous. I have explained to Deputy Kenny that the allocations referred to in the McCarthy report are multi-annual allocations for three years.

The position the country is in requires the Government to look at all areas of expenditure. We carefully considered any reductions in social welfare payments. We ensured the 470,000 pensioners and the 450,000 children in low-income and welfare-dependent families would not be affected. The Government sought everything it could.

They have had cuts made before.

The McCarthy report recommended a 5% cut in all welfare rates. The Government, however, did not go down that road. It made a choice which seeks to maintain the real purchasing power of welfare payments against a background of a drop in the cost of living of 6.6% in 2009.

I understand and acknowledge welfare rates, irrespective of whether the €8.30 has been removed, are not easy to live on. In the interests of retaining the many hundreds of thousands of payments made every week and every year, the present position was not sustainable and adjustments had to be made. The adjustment made in the particular heading of expenditure in question was less than the other adjustments made in capital, programme and public service pay expenditure.

That was the choice facing the Government. It had to make those choices in as carefully a calibrated way as possible. I acknowledge people will receive a reduced rate of payment as a result. However, we are doing so to keep a sustainable system going, not on the basis that there was some easy choice. We have to come back to the fact that the country is spending far more than what it is taking in in revenues all the time. If we do not address this position, we will have an even greater adjustment to have to contemplate than has been the case thus far.

The Government just scorched the poor.

It ruined the country.