Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Because of the Government’s failure to address the cost-of-living crisis, the Cost of Living Coalition will hold another protest outside Leinster House next Wednesday before the summer recess and a further protest before the budget on 24 September. If there were not already enough good reasons for those protests, the exceptional needs payment, which the Government has been trumpeting as the solution if people are in difficulties, provides another reason to protest.

A senior citizen came to me yesterday. On foot of all the propaganda about the exceptional needs payment she went to the community welfare officer to replace a 15-year-old broken cooker which would cost about €350. The community welfare officer told her she needed to get an engineer's report to certify that the cooker was actually broken which would cost her about €100, if she could get one. That is outrageous.

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