Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government has spoken about community welfare or exceptional needs payments as a means of dealing with the cost-of-living crisis that many people are dealing with. We are all aware of many people who are waiting an extremely long time. I know of cases in Dundalk of people waiting eight, nine and ten weeks, or longer. In some cases, we know these people are applying for exceptional needs payments to purchase white goods, for example if they have just got a council house. The delay in making such payments slows down the process of them leaving their previous house, a house that we would probably like to engage with renters and other people on from the point of view of getting them into absolutely necessary accommodation. We are dealing with multiple issues. This is meant to be a solution. We need to ensure the resources are in place, but I do not believe they are and neither do the people trying to avail of it, who are generally looking for emergency payments. We need to do something.

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