Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Up until now, the Department has never looked at the indexation of social protection payments. Is that correct? It basically just gives the Minister a table showing what it would cost if a given payment was increased by €1 or €2 and so forth. Has it ever brought the issue of need into it? This fiver for everybody is a political decision. It is not based on the needs of people, which is what the Department is supposed to respond to. I am surprised that it has never presented a paper to its Minister showing where inflation is and what would be required to index payments to the rate of inflation or showing where wages are at and what would be required to index payments to that. Is Mr. Lawler telling me that such an exercise has never been carried out by the Department of Social Protection?