Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is at the forefront of this issue and encounters much hardship and deprivation. On behalf of all in the House, I thank the society for its work. Its volunteers knock on hundreds of thousands of doors in any one year and they are worth listening to. We did not meet all the requests in its pre-budget submission but we achieved much on issues such as school meals, CDAs, thresholds, automatic payments, basic rates, pensions, lone parents and family income supplements. We have met most of its main requests. Why it needs to spend €41 million on top of all the funds it receives is a good question. I assume it is that, just because one is poor or under pressure, prices are no cheaper. For what it could have bought for €5 million many years ago it now needs €41 million. It behoves us to listen to what the Society of St. Vincent de Paul states.

I recently offered a vacancy on the Combat Poverty Agency to the vice-president of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Professor John Monaghan. He was concerned whether there would be a conflict of interest and I had to ask him a couple of times to convince him to take it because nobody knows the subject better than he does. It will help that the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is represented on the Combat Poverty Agency and I am sure most people in the House will agree.

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