Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----the percentage of older and retired people at risk of poverty has gone from 11.9% to 19.1%, as of last week. Pre-pandemic, one in ten retired people was at risk of poverty. In 2022, this spiked to one in every five people. I do not think we can ignore these figures. I know statistics mean statistics but at the end of the day, we have elderly people who are struggling. There were a number of once-off payments but many of these did not kick in until January, so people had to go through the winter months without them.

I will give the Minister an example. We talked earlier about joined-up thinking. Someone from Belmullet or elsewhere in County Mayo who needs to access hospital services in Galway can use the entire weekly pension to fund travel to that hospital appointment. The whole payment will be wiped out for a week. I understand what the Minister is saying about the extra payments, and I acknowledge them, but these often go into one pocket and are then taken out of the other pocket.

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