Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste will be aware of the extent to which inflation is eroding people's purchasing power. I am sure he will agree that this bears down hardest on those at the very bottom, namely, people who have to rely on social welfare. Does the Government intend to take steps in the forthcoming budget to restore the purchasing power of those people? Not to do so would deepen and perpetuate inequality. I include in that group people who are in receipt of the State pension, despite the views of a group of officials in the Department of Finance who reported recently and who will never have to exist on the State old-age pension in their declining years.

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