Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make an intervention; I will give the Senator back the time. Representatives of Social Justice Ireland appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht when I chaired that committee. We produced a very substantive report on the future of Irish Water. Much of the discussion at that time broke into two areas. There was the universal allowance system that Dr. Hannon mentioned earlier - I am putting aside the people who were saying there could be no water charges and just referring to the debate around the structuring of it, so there was the issue of inability to pay rather than refusal to pay - and the other school of thought was that, as opposed to a universal allowance, a more structured, targeted, focused approach should be taken on a PPS basis. I remember this because I wrote the recommendation to move to a PPS-based system to ensure that we targeted the people most in need. Rather than having a universal allowance, the idea was to target the allowance. Has the thinking of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul evolved around that area, particularly with regard to the PPS, or is it very much where it was two years ago? I put the same question to Social Justice Ireland on the allowance system. Are the witnesses advocating for a universal allowance system or a targeted approach?