Mr. Ciarán Lawler:

Sure. If one looks at the decisions that have been made in recent years, there has been a rate increase but there are also other measures. For example, we have increased the earnings disregard on the one-parent family payment in recent years. We have introduced a new structure to qualified child payments, informed by the minimum essential standard of living, and increased qualified child payments more significantly for over-12s. There have been changes to ancillary payments such as the fuel allowance. There have been changes to the living alone allowance. Even in the context of pensioners or people with disabilities, if they live alone, they are more at risk of poverty. There have been many targeted increases on top of the simple rate increase. That is where we look at the issues the Deputy mentioned.