Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is a difference between something being proposed by a Minister or Department and an actual Government decision or commitment. Again, I will come back to the Deputy on that.

The Deputy made some fair points in her remarks but it was only one side of the story. She mentioned the €12 increase in the weekly pension payment, which came into effect in January, but she did not mention the expansion of the fuel allowance to 70,000 lower income people who are pensioners, which has helped a lot of pensioners to get the fuel allowance who did not get it before, or the series of one-off payments ranging from the energy credit, to double pension payments, to the €200 payment a few weeks ago. When they are taken in the round, and if the Deputy is being fair, she should take them in the round, income has kept up with inflation or is at least close to it. If the Deputy is being fair and accurate, she must also acknowledge those increases. She cannot focus on the weekly increase and ignore every other increase. She would not do so if it was the other way around so she might want to expand on that in her further reply.

She is correct that poverty rates among pensioners and older people increased last year. largely as a result of the cost-of-living crisis and the high inflation everyone has experienced. However, she did not knowledge that pensioner poverty is lower than poverty among working-age people. Pensioners or older people are less likely to experience poverty than adults of working age. It is important to acknowledge that. While poverty rates increased last year due to the cost-of-living crisis, they had been falling and trending downwards for many years. I believe that with incomes recovering, prices stabilising and the actions the Government will take in the next budget, we will see it improve again.

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