Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar has been accused of allowing his leadership ambitions for Fine Gael to affect next week’s Budget.

The claim comes directly from Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin over a plan to either delay or reduce any possible hike in the state pension.

Minister Varadkar wants to save money for other areas, and is looking to avoid a €5 increase in the pension from January, possibly delaying it by some months.

Micheál Martin has hit out at what he sees as “erratic” behaviour, saying: “There is an element of internal Fine Gael politics afoot here. I think the Budget is falling victim to the political jousting within Fine Gael, to be frank.”

Leo Varadkar says: “This time the recovery needs to be for everyone: employed, self employed, people who can’t work, rural and urban, young and old. Everyone needs to feels it in their pockets, even if it’s modest.’

A spokesman for the minister says: “The Government is united in the view that along with an increase in the weekly pension, there also has to be an increase for other groups who get a weekly welfare payment like the carers, the disabled, the blind, the widows, guardians of orphans, people on invalidity and illness benefits.

“While we would like to give everyone €5 a week from the first of January, it would cost approximately €350m a year which is impossible given current budgetary constraints. So we are working on a solution that will give everyone an increase as early in the year as we can afford.’

“These 400,000 people had their weekly payments cut by €16 a week under Fianna Fáil and got no increase since 2008.

“it’s important that nobody is left behind in this recovery and that we don’t pit one group in society against another. Everyone should benefit.

“They are a very vulnerable group. Poverty rates among these people are high and many of them have dependent children and account for a lot of our child poverty problem.

“The difficulty is that resources are limited and anything you do in social welfare costs hundreds of millions of euros because 1.2m people receive a weekly payment from social protection.

“There is no perfect solution but we will find one that is good and acceptable.”