Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is absolutely right that soundbites do not put food on the table - jobs do. There are more people at work in Ireland than ever in our history. Almost 2.3 million people are now at work. The working family payment for those in low paid jobs with families, and we improved that payment this year, ensures that people who are in work, do 19 hours work or more every week and who have children are kept out of poverty. That is the reason we have the working family payment. The CSO is not a NGO or a lobby group. It produces official statistics and those statistics show that poverty and deprivation in Ireland are falling and inequality and income inequality are narrowing. Those things should be welcomed.

I acknowledge we have more to do: there is always more work to do. We intend to do that work by continuing to build employment, continuing to increase wages and improve incomes, continuing to give more people their money back through reductions in taxation, reducing the cost of accessing public services such as childcare and healthcare and by putting through the type of legislation being brought forward by the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, to enhance workers' rights, ban zero-hour contracts in almost all circumstances and to introduce banded hours. All of those measures are very much part of the Government's programme to improve living standards. I ask the Opposition to co-operate with the Government in getting that legislation through.

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