Mr. Ciarán Lawler:

Again, the current focus is on the primary rate of payment when we are examining indexation or benchmarking, rather than on ancillary payments such as the living alone allowance or the fuel allowance. Many of those ancillary payments are used to target resources at groups of people who are most vulnerable, for example, in the case of the living alone allowance, and others. There may need to be some discretion for the Government to target payments in a particular year at particular groups more at risk of poverty, for example.