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On March 31, a plenary session of the House of Councillors voted to enact stop-gap legislation to ensure continued payment of the child allowance submitted by the DPJ. As in the Committee on Health, Welfare and Labour in the Upper House, the same number of votes were cast in favour and against the legislation, and it was enacted by the casting vote of the President of the House of Councillors Takeo Nishioka, in accordance with Article 56, Clause 2 of the Constitution.
Since it had been difficult to enact legislation for the child allowance for the new fiscal year due to the shift of power in the upper house from the ruling to the opposition parties, this legislation extending the period of payment for the child allowance legislation for fiscal 2010 for a further six months was introduced, and will be executed April 1.
On that same day, the plenary session of the House of Councillors voted to enact legislation to reduce the monthly allowances for Diet members for a period of six months, amounting in total to three million yen per Diet member. The resulting total 2.1 billion yen will be used as funding toward recovery and reconstruction efforts in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
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