Yukio Hatoyama's "Yu-Ai" -- Message from the Prime Minister
(Provisional Translation)

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Japanese

"The start of the ordinary Diet session"

As the ordinary Diet session starts, I would like to first say one thing.

It is extremely regrettable that an incumbent member of the House of Representatives from the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) was arrested at the end of last week. I will calmly watch over the progress of the investigation.

Secretary General of the DPJ Ichiro Ozawa and I are comrades who together accomplished the change of government and I have accepted the announcement of his determination to prove his innocence. It goes without saying that I have no intention whatsoever of criticizing the prosecutors or prejudging the investigation. I believe it is preferable for Secretary General Ozawa to explain his innocence at his own discretion.

The supplementary budget under deliberation at the Diet is a budget for, amongst others, the reinforcement of employment countermeasures and the expansion of the emergency credit guarantee system to secure financing for small- and medium-sized enterprises as the end of the fiscal year approaches. Considering the current economic climate, this budget must be passed and executed as soon as possible.

In the fiscal 2010 budget, we have earmarked budgets for the child allowance, which will be 13,000 yen per month for the first year, free education at public senior high schools, and subsidies ranging from about 120,000 to 240,000 yen to households with children in private senior high schools.

True to the Hatoyama Cabinet's policy of realizing a politics that protects people's lives, we have already revived the additional living support allowance paid to single-mother households, which had once been abolished, in December. Budgets to continue its provision in the next fiscal year onward, to expand medical fee subsidies in measures to address hepatitis, to aid atomic bomb survivors, and to review the Services and Supports for Persons with Disabilities Act are also allocated.

For many of the items we pledged in our Manifesto, if not all, we are firmly moving up the stairs to implementation, one step at a time. We will take on the Diet deliberations with all of our efforts to pass the budgets and bills, determined to revitalize the economy and protect people's lives.