Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat. I thank the witnesses for their presentations. Following on from that previous question, the Parliamentary Budget Office showed two consecutive years of real wage decline in 2022 and 2023. Projections now indicate that workers relying on State pensions and other welfare supports will be worse off at the end of 2024 than when this Government came to power in 2020. I wonder if this information matches up with the research of the witnesses' organisations. Is it fair to conclude that in real terms people, on average, have been worse off since 2020? In order to introduce indexation in a fair and effective manner, would we still need to guard against loss of income in real terms in situations like those we have seen in recent years whereby wages have not kept up with inflation?

I have a few other questions. The argument is often made that because we have an ageing population, we cannot afford to index welfare payments due to the fact that the cost of pensions would be unsustainable on foot of demographic changes. As Social Justice Ireland outlined in its submission, the largest number of recipients of welfare payments are parents. We know we have a declining birth rate, and we need to support people and families by reducing the cost of having a family if we are to have stable demographics and a strong workforce. How would the witnesses respond to opposition to the indexation of welfare payments on grounds of demographics and public finances? I will let the witnesses address these questions, and then I might come back in with another few.