Dr. Tom McDonnell:

Yes, absolutely. It is a protective measure. There is an imbalance between people's incomes and the cost of living, but there is not an imbalance for everybody in that regard. What I would like to see is how we can use our resources to protect the most vulnerable in society. We know there is broad support for a second-tier child benefit, which would potentially halve child poverty on the island of Ireland. I refer to those types of measures. We can fix the welfare system, including through tapered payments for poorer working households, but the problem is the administration. We have waited too long perhaps to do it this year but we should look at whether we could put it in place for budget 2027, for example, and therefore bring up those levels to a sufficient adequacy whereby people are able to thrive within Irish society during the cost-of-living crisis.