Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I hope to be able to bring the report to the Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection before the summer. We need a few months to make inroads if we are to avoid making the budgetary negotiations longer and more painful than they need to be. It will give us time to determine what the impacts are, particularly on families on fixed incomes to whom the Deputy referred. However, there are other payments - "schemes" is not the right word - to people on fixed incomes in recognition of the fact that it is difficult to live an entire life and pay for everything the Deputy described on just that single payment. We have the living alone allowance, the fuel allowance and the new telephone allowance, which will be introduced in June.

I am open to considering ways for us to satisfy people's needs, but I want to base that consideration on data, which I hope we will have to hand in the form of the report this summer.

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