Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The cost-of-living package the Cabinet agreed earlier is wholly inadequate. It goes nowhere near meeting the desperate needs of the many workers and families who are really struggling to keep their heads above water. Once again, the Government's entire focus is on once-off measures. People need to know how they will pay their soaring bills not just this week or next week, but next month and in the months that follow. Every increasing numbers of people throughout the country are now living in fear. They are living in fear of the next electricity bill, the next gas bill, the next trip to the supermarket. They know they cannot possibly manage. We know that 30% of parents are skipping meals in order that their children have enough to eat. Ireland is one of the richest countries in the world, but a great many parents are struggling just to provide food for their children.

Is that not shameful? The Government's package is especially disappointing because of, as the Taoiseach knows - he has even highlighted this - the lifelong damage that is caused by child poverty. When the Taoiseach took up office, he promised to do everything in his power to tackle child poverty. He does not need a special unit in his Department to know that the best way to reduce child poverty is by targeting increased resources at the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children in our society. We know that more than 50% of those living in poverty are lone parents and their children and people with disabilities and their children, yet they have been almost completely ignored in the Government's package. The qualified child payment was increased by a measly €2 in the budget. That is €2 for the poorest children in our country out of a bonanza €11 billion budget package. The Government has doubled down in this regard and failed to provide any increase at all to this vital payment. It has also refused to introduce a weekly cost-of-disability payment that would recognise the huge additional costs of having a disability.

There are other things the Government could have done and that it should have done. Core social welfare rates have fallen way behind the surging cost-of-living increases across the economy. The Government has decided to leave these families who are reliant on these payments - pensioners, lone parents and carers - living below the poverty line. It has not even extended the fuel allowance to low-paid workers on the working family payment. In fact, it has done nothing to help families with soaring energy costs. When is the Government going to change its approach and provide sustainable supports to the poorest families who are most in need? How can it claim to be targeting child poverty when it has failed to increase a payment that only the most vulnerable children in our society receive? When is it going to do something about energy costs?

See this speech in context