Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have two questions. Mr Egan said there was an increase in poverty. Would I be right in thinking that the cause of that is simple in that the social welfare payments did not keep in line with the rate of inflation? We can get all the statistics and facts but it all boils to a simple fact. People in real terms have less money for homes, cost-of-living costs, keeping themselves, cars and all the rest. I mean just keeping the car on the road that they had the previous year because we had 10% inflation. We had €12 increases. For example, if we take it on a working age payment, I think it went from €208 to €220, and the contributory pension went to €265. It rose €12. If taken as a percentage of €220 or €212 or €253, it is way less than the rate of inflation. Would that be a simple, global reason poverty would have increased?

We got caught out once in my office because we sought a review, and by the time the review took place, we went to appeal it and they tried to argue that the appeal was out of date. However, we always thought you got a decision, sought a review and did not bother the appeals office because you could get the review first, that it was a sequential operation. If the review was successful, that meant that the appeals office was not bureaucratically tied up in it. If it was unsuccessful, you then went to appeal. We need clarification about the process. In more recent times, I started going for review and appeal at the same time. I know it has caused trouble for bureaucracy but I am not going to get caught out with somebody telling me that we did not seek an appeal in good time when the thing was already in the Department.