Mr. John McGeady:

Obviously, we know that if we look at the deprivation and poverty rate, which came out in the CSO's SILC data, a very large number of people are on pensions who would have been in poverty had it not been for the additional cost-of-living measures introduced. This goes to show those cost-of-living measures are having a major impact. The fact that these are not going to continue is an issue of serious concern. The benefit these temporary measures have been having needs to be translated into the benefit of the ongoing constant core social welfare payments. Again, for the purposes of this aspect, we were looking at those three payments at that 27.5% rate. That is only a starting point, however, it is by no means the endpoint.