Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We have touched on indexation, in which this committee took a particular interest. I do not necessarily think we were expecting to see indexation rolled out this year, and certainly I was not expecting that, but maybe there could be a recognition of the value of indexation as a map for how welfare rates, in particular, could be decided.

Last week, the committee met representatives of the ESRI, IFAC, IBEC and NERI. One of the issues we discussed was that children in Ireland are more likely to live in poverty than people of working age or elderly people. We discussed that in the context of child benefit and the working family payment. While we have spoken a lot this year about targeted measures, which I very much support, some universal measures have a particular impact. The research tells us that they might be paid more to women or used in a particular way. Rather than having only targeted measures in the budget, can we expect to see that recognised in an uplift across the board, particularly in respect of payments that have stagnated since 2008?