Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy said, the Department has partly funded the excellent and detailed work of the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice for a number of years and it is useful. I met Sr. Bernadette McMahon at my Department's pre-budget forum in July. The work of the Vincentians highlights the importance of services and how they can impact on the minimum income standards needed by households. The minimum essential standard of living, MESL, research has consistently identified older children. We have made progress on that and I want to see us continue to make more progress. Bringing the weekly working age social welfare rates in line would entail increasing the maximum personal rate to €250 and increasing the qualified child rate to €48.20 for children under 12 and €94.70 for children over 12. That would cost an additional €2.51 billion per year.

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