John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is interesting. It is a notion that I have thought about over the years. Thankfully, for the over-65 age cohort, they are vocal and good at advocating. However, it is interesting to note – not that we want any kind of poverty level in any cohort – that the weight of poverty among the over-65s is significantly less than for other groups under that age group. Now, that is worrying in itself. It leads me to the question about indexation being a universal thing. I do not regard myself as being particularly well-off. I earn a very good salary but I also have a very significant mortgage like many others. The energy bill piece, whereby the Government is giving a €100 rebate to all electricity account holders, is like the index-linked pension increase. Everybody gets that, regardless of their need for it. I could think of many ways in which that €100 could have been distributed a little more fairly, particularly to those who might suffer from energy poverty and may have needed more than that. There are also others who do not particularly need it but welcome the reduction of €100 of their energy bills, but would not notice if they did not get it. With indexation, someone who would be on a very good defined contribution pension, defined benefit pension or reasonably comfortable, would also get the benefit of the indexation if it was to be brought in. I ask the witnesses for their views on attempting to distribute that a little bit more equitably in targeting it. With targeting, obviously, people have worked and will assert that they have earned it, they have paid their stamps, and they are entitled to that. It seems to me that the universality piece comes back to the old argument about child benefit. As we know, there are families who open an account for their baby almost on the day they come back from hospital, and in goes the child benefit for weeks, months and years. When the child reaches the age of 18 there is a great, big sizeable pot there because they are comfortable, and fair play to them. There are other families for whom existence would simply be impossible without that benefit. I ask the witnesses for their views on that. It is not directly connected to the issue at hand, but I am sure the witnesses can see where I am coming from.