Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Rourke for tabling the motion. The main focus is on prepay customers. I do not know if the Government, including the Minister, understands the situation those prepay customers are in. First, I believe the prepay situation is a total scam. Most people are made to go into it if they have fallen into arrears and they are told this is a better way of managing their budget and their money, but it is not.

I want to focus on children because we are going to have children not just going hungry, but cold, going to school the following day having had inadequate sleep, with inadequate supports in trying to get homework done and with inadequate food. On occasion, we talk in the Dáil about child poverty and every Member seems to get up and say it is something he or she wants to eradicate, yet we have systems that continuously fail children. That goes to the heart of this issue, in that we are continuously failing children who are some of the most vulnerable in our society and who do not necessarily have a voice for themselves.

It is important that the issue of prepay customers is dealt with. It is totally unfair to exclude people just because they are on a prepay metering system. I do not understand how anybody thinks that is a good system and people should not be encouraged into it.

I refer to the exceptional needs payment. I am sick of hearing about this from the Government and even in advertisements. I cannot think of one person coming to my office who has applied for this payment and received it in the past few months. If they are on any sort of income, even a low income, they seem to be disqualified from it. That is apart from the fact there are huge waiting lists and it takes approximately five to nine weeks, as Deputy Kerrane said, which is totally inadequate for an emergency payment. The idea of it being an emergency is that people cannot wait for it. However, they are not even qualifying for it. That is not the solution. It particularly annoys me.

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