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

Okay, great.

I would like to talk a little about uncertainty, which we have already mentioned a bit tonight. I was interested in the discussion of indexation just there because I am interested in it generally. Some of that discussion somewhat implied indexation locks you into a particular decision and of course in most countries that is not the case. It is about what Mr. McGann mentioned, which is expectation. It might lock you into an expectation but in the context of what the OECD says about the Irish budgetary process, that might not be a bad thing. I am not asking a policy question here but a question about the possible levers. There will probably be no meaningful reduction in the cost of living between now and the next budget we put together. By focusing so much on once-off payments we have not bridged that gap or at least we will have a wider gap to bridge the next time around and indexation would perhaps have been part of the answer to that. What can we do next year? On the indexation of pensions, not to make life difficult to pensioners but they are one of the cohorts who are best protected by our social welfare and it seems slightly ironic they are the ones who are now going to get indexation. Is it fair to say we might have made a rod for our own back by focusing so much on one-off payments?