Mr. Niall Egan:

I am afraid I am not familiar with that, and I do not think the Department has access to that information. We have never collated data on how people use income. Our role is to identify that people have basic needs and income requirements and we pay them the amount we have to under legislation. We are not aware how they spend that money nor would we be trying to capture that data. We look more at supports for individuals. We do engage with an awful lot of people through our public employment service. Issues the Deputy has identified would have come up with our colleagues in relation to accessing State supports to help and support individuals to bridge that gap. Fundamentally, what we are trying to do is to move more people closer to the labour market and ultimately get them into employment.