Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Poverty is something we must fight against and work to eliminate, which is what the Government and I are doing. The critical way to help people out of poverty is to get them into employment and to get good jobs. This is why we will be raising the minimum wage. I know it does not affect a huge number of people but it affects about 75,000 people in work. I hope that we will also look in the budget at ways of making things better for families with children, regardless of whether they are two or one-parent families - whatever kind of families they are. In particular, we are looking at ways of helping people who have retired.

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