Mr. Seán Moynihan:

To go back to the point on targeted measures, everybody is grateful that, at a time of high inflation, we had the ability as a country to step in. The reality is that prices have not gone down for those most at risk.

The big pushback from the NGO sector last year was on our inability to target. All of our inputs and those of other colleagues here are meant to try to protect people because, while the targeted measures may be removed, many prices will continue to rise.

Sometimes, we lump all older people in together but they are not a homogenous group. People aged from 60 to 90 are not the same and everybody does not live the same life. The people who use our services are generally over-65s. They use primary and acute health services two to three times more than the average group of older people. A total of 37% of the people who use our services tell us they are struggling to pay utility bills. People may not realise that, without the one-off measures, a large number of older people on their own are at the highest risk of poverty of any age group in a community. Sometimes, we think that people are retired and it is all fine because somebody will say he or she knows somebody down the road who is older and runs 5 km races. That is great, and plenty of older people are in that group, but social protection is about putting a floor under those most in need.

The roadmap for social inclusion, the national pension strategy and many others, including most Government and non-Government parties, have spoken at some stage about benchmarking the pension. We believe many officials are in favour of it but somehow we never quite get there. Every year, we have to work out how much of an increase there might be. In good times, older people might do well, but at other times, they may go several years without an increase, as do other marginalised groups.

We would like the Government once and for all to actually benchmark the pension at 34% of the average industrial wage. It would still be up around the poverty line but it would allow people to know and to have safety and security, which is what we all look for when we age.