**********************************************************
Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, on the Kai Ching Estate incident and Legislative Council (LegCo) matters today (June 2):
Reporter: For the psychological support that you are going to provide to the Kai Ching Estate residents, can you tell us more about it? Is it just for the 10th floor's tenants or is it for all or what kind of support?
Secretary for Labour and Welfare: The counselling service will apply to everybody who feels psychological strain if they need help. Our clinical psychologists together with the Housing Department will arrange debriefing sessions, hopefully from tomorrow onward, and also provide emotional counselling as well as professional services.
Reporter: As for the filibuster, it seems like the Budget is going to be passed in the next one on Wednesday. How do you take on this?
Secretary for Labour and Welfare: You have to look at the problem at two tiers. First of all in LegCo itself, even if the process has stopped, even if the Appropriation Bill has been passed, we need to approach the Finance Committee and the Establishment Subcommittee for approval before we can actually kick start various projects. For example on my side of the house we have got this Low-income Working Family Allowance which is a very important initiative to help working poor families. We are talking about 700 000 people who would stand to benefit, benefiting 200 000 families. And it is a massive major project to help the grassroots, to support them. In the short term, we are talking about the relief measures, providing an additional standard allowance and social security payments for the needy as well. We are talking about 1.2 million people to be affected. We really hope to disburse the allowances as quickly as possible. So any delay will not be in the public interest. I appeal to the Legislators concerned, stop the filibuster straight away, stop the process and get back to business.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Monday, June 2, 2014
Issued at HKT 18:34
NNNN