Mr. John Mark McCafferty:

I would like to respond to a number of the points that have been made. I am still catching up with Deputy Pearse Doherty's questions. We will be dealing with equality budgeting on budget day. The action that is being taken with regard to school uniforms is very good news for Barnardos, ourselves and the National Parents Council. We are finally getting somewhere after a great deal of lobbying, advocating and chipping away. It is not rocket science, as the Deputy said.

Deputy Doherty also raised the issue of school meals and wider issues of nutrition. I would be in favour of a more nutrition-oriented approach to the provision of school meals. There needs to be better co-ordination between the Departments of Health, Education and Skills, Social Protection and Children and Youth Affairs, all four of which have an interest in child well-being, youth well-being and the education system. The Department of Social Protection funds the school meals programme. A better and more effective nutrition-based school meals programme can be achieved if there is enhanced co-ordination on the part of the four Departments.

The Deputy also mentioned the school books schemes. A number of matters arise in that regard. In our submission, we advocate a more indepth study of how the existing book rental schemes, which we want to protect, could be further advanced and extended to schools that do not run school book rental programmes at present.

We would welcome with great aplomb any reversal in the child benefit cuts. We are looking to protect child benefit and family income supplement. We are in favour of an enhanced child income support structure that rewards work while ensuring families do not lose out as a result of any proposed changes. The possibility of a 3% cut in social welfare was mentioned by the Deputy. That would involve a reduction of approximately €5.50 in weekly social welfare rates. Our red line, to take up the phrase used by someone else, is absolute cuts to income supports and services, a key one being the social welfare rates to people of working age.

This would be devastating. People are already telling us that the cuts heretofore have been devastating.

Mention was made of families in cold homes. We are at the forefront in pushing the regulator to roll out pay-as-you-go meters in both the gas and electricity sectors and we are feeding in to consultations on smart metering, which will come on stream over the next two to three years. With rising energy bills, the retrofitting programme under the better energy and energy affordability strategy - probably one of the Government's best kept secrets - is key to tackling what will only be rising energy prices, something over which the Government has almost no control.