Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

On pensioners living on their own, we have the living alone allowance, which is worth €22 a week. There is also the fuel allowance, which is paid during fuel allowance season. I am very conscious that one person has more expenses than two living together. We continue to keep that under review.

At this point, my current priority is to extend hot school meals to every primary school and to make sure they are all included. We have grown the scheme. The former Minister, Heather Humphreys, grew the scheme exponentially over the last three years. We are going to catch our breath and take learnings from it. That is why the nutritional review is under way. When we have taken learnings from it, I would like to see DEIS secondary schools supported as well. The Deputy makes a really good point. When you are in sixth class, you get a hot meal but, when you are in first year, you do not. However, it is a budgetary matter. This €320 million is a very substantial investment in hot school meals. The road to progress is to take secondary schools in but I will not put a timeline on that at the moment.

We are not planning to have a cost-of-living package in this year's budget.

The one-off payments had a function at a particular time. I will be more focused on long-term schemes, some of which we discussed here. These will have a more long-term impact on people.