Mr. Ciar?n Nugent:

With regard to the last point, looking at the deprivation figures for workers, they are based on actual consumption. Our risk of poverty indicator is, I will not say random, but it is an arbitrary line in the income distribution - 60% of the median. In a single person household, it is about €17,000. The minimum essential standard of living estimates put it at about 40% higher than that, so there is a gap there. It is a good indicator in some respects but I prefer the deprivation rate. It has been growing as well as a share, obviously, as unemployment has decreased. The biggest group now in deprivation are workers and it is at about 33% or 34%, which equates to about 300,000 people. A couple of years ago that figure was 180,000. There are problems with that indicator as well. It is based on criteria such as whether a person can afford shoes. It used to be whether a person could afford a landline and stuff like that. The fact of the matter is that figure was about 170,000 workers three or four years ago and now it is more than 300,000. That is from SILC, a strong survey based on robust data. More than 300,000 workers cannot afford certain basics. The big indicators driving that last year were the social exclusion indicators such as going out twice a month or having guests over to the house were the big drivers. Again, housing is the big issue driving that on the adequacy side. About 25% of renters basically cannot afford to go out for a drink or a meal every fortnight. That is driving it at the moment. We have seen inflation in restaurants.