Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis na finnéithe. I am next but we have to make sure that if there is a vote in the Dáil we will be able to attend it. I had prepared questions, but then I was listening to the conversation and now I have a variety of different questions. I will start with what happened yesterday and the conversation around social welfare because a lot of the time the conversation, even sometimes in the media or among working people you would be talking to, can be misunderstood. One of the things that jumped out at me was what Dr. McDonnell said about it not being evidence-based. If that was in the conversation more, that would have been helpful. I might start off with yesterday and the likes of the spring bonus, for want of a better phrase, of €200 being announced. How could that have been better spent? I know Dr. McDonnell has talked about benchmarking but I ask him, or whoever would like to do so, to comment on that initially.