Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Chairman has asked a very good question. We are very conscious that the kind of inflation that is being experienced impacts on everyone. That is why it will involve a combination of measures, some of which will be targeted. We have made progress in recent years in reducing inequality and poverty. Even at times when it was not possible, for example, to increase the weekly core social welfare rates some good work was done through those very targeted measures such as qualified child dependant allowance payments and, in the case of people living alone, through the living alone payment. We will examine all of those but we recognise that there are certain payments that have a universal characteristic to them which will also play a role in getting that overall balance right. We will be very conscious of the need to protect the lowest income groups or lowest income deciles but we know that everyone is impacted, not in the same way and not evenly, by what we are experiencing at the moment.