Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----of poverty proofing. It is a critical issue for people. We need to identify the types of households and the types of people in order to ensure that people are not in what is termed as water poverty - that is when more than 3% of their income goes towards the cost of water. That is the benchmark mentioned in the literature I have read. We sought and got more than 200 submissions to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers on all the issues. Department officials and I have met representatives of specific interest groups who have a mandate and are advocates for those who would be deemed to be from low-income households. We have commissioned an ESRI report on this specific issue. When that report is finalised it will be in the public domain. All the issues on poverty proofing, free allowance, etc., will need to be addressed here in the Oireachtas and I will be happy to ensure there is full and proper debate on every aspect of that. Key to the credibility of what we are doing is for people to accept the very difficult economic situation we are in.

Deputy Cowen said that unless all these issues were properly discussed today, his party could not accept the process. One of the difficulties is that we do not have time because of the time pressures of the troika agreement signed by the previous Fianna Fáil-led Government.

See this speech in context