Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In one of the richest countries in the world we now have tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands - of people dependent on food banks for food.

Hundreds of thousands of people are now in arrears with their energy and utility bills. Some 12,000 people are officially homeless in emergency accommodation, but actually the numbers are multiples of that. I believe the Government's economic subcommittee is meeting this Thursday to discuss possible measures to address all of this. I put it to the Taoiseach that the Government has been fiddling around the edges and has been totally ineffective in preventing the cruel hardship and the drive into poverty and homelessness for tens of thousands of people. We need dramatic emergency measures to address the cost-of-living housing crisis, such as increasing pensions, welfare and wages at least to the level of inflation,-----

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