We cannot support the Order of Business unless we get a guarantee from Government that the Estimates will be published today as soon as possible and that there is a clear verbal briefing for the Opposition. This is an Estimates motion to allow the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to continue to pay pensions and other welfare payments from 8 June because if it is not passed, the Department will meet its 80% ceiling and cannot pay any payments.
I fully appreciate that Deputies will want to raise and discuss other issues but the only question being asked of the House is to pass this Estimate in order that all social welfare payments can continue to be paid from 8 June on a no-policy change basis. All we are asking the House to do tomorrow is to vote on a social welfare Estimate to allow us to continue to pay existing social welfare payments and pensions from 8 June.
Key terms by TF-IDF across 2,370 words from 11 speakers. The summary quotes the highest-scoring sentences verbatim — nothing is paraphrased.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Frankie Feighan and Peter Burke; Níl, Deputies Danny Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath.
Party shown is the one each member held on 2020-05-27, frozen by a dated join — not their party today. The Oireachtas API publishes no date of birth and returns an empty gender field for every member in this period, so no age or gender breakdown is shown.