Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are income limits associated with this scheme. The Deputy quoted the lowest one. It depends on the number of children a person has. Certain incomes are excluded from consideration and are not reckonable, including housing assistance payment, working family payment, rent supports and so on. The Deputy is now advocating for the very families she believes should be paying 50% income tax rates. These are families earning €700 or €800 per week. In the last budget, the Government gave an individual earning €700 a week an extra €400 and an extra €800 to a couple. I do not think the Deputy's newfound advocacy for these middle-income families will really fool anyone. Anyone looking at Sinn Féin's last pre-budget submission will see it did not propose a single euro of an increase in the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. I looked at the three emergency budgets proposed by Sinn Féin in the last weeks. There was no mention of back-to-school or back-to-education costs. Sinn Féin said the package was €1.3 billion, then suddenly it came up with another package of €160 million to tackle back-to-school costs.

See this speech in context