THE TWO Independents supporting the Government were absent when it had a majority of three in a vote on a Labour motion demanding a reversal of the cancellation of the double Christmas payment to social welfare recipients.

Michael Lowry (Tipperary North) and Jackie Healy-Rae (Kerry South) were not in their usual places on the Independent benches for the vote.

Carlow-Kilkenny FF TD John McGuinness, who was dropped as a junior minister on Wednesday, was also absent for the vote.

The Government won the divison by 70 votes to 67. The three TDs were also absent for an earlier division on the same issue, which the Government won 70 votes to 65.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, at the conclusion of the debate, strongly urged Mr Lowry and Mr Healy-Rae to vote for the motion.

He said: “We all understand the way politics works and that the two deputies signed up, in June 2007, to support the Government in the course of the life of this Dáil.

“I know both would want to honour that agreement with the Government.

“We have never seen the content of the agreement, but I am certain, from knowing both deputies, that they never signed up to an agreement with the Government to support taking the Christmas payment from old age pensioners and those on disability allowances.

“It would not dishonour them in this House to vote against a measure to which they never signed up to support and do not, in honour, have to support now.”

Mr Gilmore warned the two Independents that if they supported the Government, they could not go back to their constituencies and say that they were voting in order to honour a deal.

“There is no such agreement,’’ he added.

Challenging the Green Party to support the Labour motion, Mr Gilmore said that nowhere in the programme for government was there any statement that the party would support the taking away of the Christmas payment from pensioners and others in need.

“The only reason it would support the measure today is to stay in office,’’ he added.

Challenging the assertion that the money from the Celtic Tiger had been wasted, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said that the Government had been able to provide significant increases in welfare payments in the past decade. “For example, the payment of child benefit has increased from less than €44 to €166 per month,” he said.

“The State contributory pension has risen from €113 to more than €230 per week. The weekly rate of long-term jobseeker’s allowance was raised from €93 to €204.”

When Olwyn Enright (FG) said costs had risen at the same rate, Mr Lenihan insisted that the payments compared well internationally and in particular with payments in Britain and Northern Ireland.

As he was heckled by opposition TDs, Mr Lenihan accused them of living in a financial bubble of their own.