UNEMPLOYMENT payments for 1997 are expected to amount to almost £1 billion, according to the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa. He told Dr Michael Woods, the Fianna Fail spokesman on social welfare, that total provision in the revised Book of Estimates was for £960.7 million. The amount covered an average of 255,000 people out of work.

Mr De Rossa said the indications were that the provisions for unemployment payments were adequate and that preliminary figures for April showed a drop of 4,000 in the Lived Register.

In reply to Dr Woods the Minister said that the cost of social welfare payments in the three budgets of the current Government was £588 million. The cumulative real value of these increases ranged from 2.6 per cent to 8.6 per cent. Old age and widows pensions and long term unemployment assistance had risen from £61 in 1994 to £67.50 this year.

Dr Woods criticised the Government's record on social welfare increases and said they were significantly larger during the Fianna Fail Progressive Democrats government's tenure.

He backed this up with a quotation from a column in the The Irish Times written by Mr Vincent Browne.

The Minister said, however, that Mr Browne had combined the increases in the three budgets of the Fianna Fail Progressive Democrats government from 1989-1992 but only counted the benefits in two of the current Government's three budgets.