asked the Minister for Finance on what quantities of bread and butter per (a) child, (b) adult labourer, (c) worker in a sedentary occupation, and (d) man or woman over 65 years of age, his calculation of 1/– per week increase in social assistance payments was made, as an offset against the full impact of ending the food subsidies.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Assistance Payments: Consumption of Bread and Butter.
asked the Minister for Finance if he will state the quantities of bread and butter and their calorific value, to be bought and consumed in one day by each person in a family of four, for the additional 4/6 per month which he computed would ease the impact on a husband, wife and two children of the recent impositions of the Budget.
I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to take Questions No. 23 and No. 24 together.
As I stated in my Budget speech, the subsidies on bread, butter and flour on the basis of average consumption per head were worth over the last year approximately 1/1 to each individual in the community. It was by reference to this fact and the financial position as a whole that the increase in social assistance payments and in children's allowances was determined.
Is the Minister aware that the Household Budget Survey showed that the lower the income, the higher the consumption of bread and butter and consequently the 1/1 mentioned in his Budget statement is completely fallacious? Does the Minister not also know, being a doctor, that the consumption, and the calorific values needed by the different classes mentioned, are completely different and that in making an average figure he has been completely neglectful of the consequences of his Budget on the middle class and particularly on the lower income groups?
I am not aware that the lower income group eats more butter than the average. If you take the butter and bread together it comes out a little above——
They can eat dry bread? It suits the Minister all right.
They have to; they did it from 1948 to 1951 when the Deputy was Minister.
No, they did not. That is a silly answer, a stupid answer.
The amount of butter eaten in the lower income groups is not above the average. We took the number in the group and the amount of butter consumed and worked out the average in that way.
They can eat dry bread.