Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is fair enough because the way the political system has always acted here has been to provide a fiver or whatever it is. It has always been a flat rate rather than being based on need or some reference point with regard to wages or increases in the cost of living. Now that we know where we are at this point in time, with the rate of inflation higher than 5%, by how much would working-age payments have had to increase in last year's budget just to meet the rate of inflation in wider society?