Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I support this proposal. I would have gone further and called for reports on the terms of the changes introduced to the lone parent allowance and for young people in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance. Again, these were meant to be emergency measures, but we have not seen either being rowed back on.

The Government has announced there is a recovery and that we are in a different era. Accordingly, if the general election is held in February, the proposed reports would be finalised when parties are in the middle of discussions on a future programme for Government. It is important that any future Government look at the effects of various social welfare changes introduced in the past few years under this and the previous Government and see how quickly they cuts could be rowed back on. It is also important to look at how the cuts affected particular sections of society in receipt of these payments.

Inflation, since the Government took office, is running at about 5%. Even if all of the payments were to be restored, they would still be lower than what their true value would have been five years ago. We need to be mindful of this in any discussion on the matter.

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