Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I want to again raise the issue of the need to set up a cost of living hardship emergency fund to be distributed by community welfare officers in order that families can access the resources they need for things like fuel and food, and for those community welfare officers to be in the community, like they used to be. I welcome the fact community welfare officers are at the airports, welcoming and resourcing Ukrainian refugees. Given the urgent needs people are going to have in the future, particularly with another increase of 6.7% in inflation over the next couple of months, we must bring in a fund like this, separate to the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is for a different purpose. We are talking about a specific hardship fund so people can access community welfare officers for food and fuel in the community. It is very important that we do this and the Government should respond.

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