Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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Do the witnesses agree that the decision to introduce a number of once-off payments, as they were described, to complement the inadequate core payments over the past couple of years to assist households through a very difficult period, was, in itself, an admission that core welfare rates are utterly inadequate? My next question is based on that observation. Where do the witnesses think the Tánaiste got the idea of a €12 increase to the State pension, as announced in his Ard-Fheis speech? I have been trying to retrospectively find out where that came from. It does not seem to have come from any evidence base. I get a sense it was a figure that was plucked out of the air and, as is the case with the media, everybody shouts “Look, over there”, and everybody runs. We have started the budget kite-flying series earlier than we ever have, and now it seems that we are being prepared to expect a pension increase of €12. In itself, that is not at all adequate and sends a bad message to those of us who are interested in questions around benchmarking and adequacy as to what to expect in a few month’s time. Where might he have got that figure of €12? Does anyone have a sense of that? Did he pull it out of the air?