Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegates. This is an interesting discussion. It makes me think of what else could have an effect. Let me hone in. On budget 2020, the ESRI produced figures of €462 million for price indexation and €1.3 billion for wage indexation. The delegates mentioned higher education grants by SUSI. In its analysis, would the ESRI have included increasing thresholds for everybody, including workers and people on social welfare? While all the indexing is great, my concern is that, in real terms, if we were to use cost rather than wages, we would get to a stage very quickly where it would be less obvious that work would pay. Is there a risk in that?