Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Government prioritised once-off payments. The vast majority of the payments the Minister listed are once-off but the price increases are permanent. They are not going to go down. Groceries are not going to decrease in price to where they were a couple of years ago. If inflation goes down, prices do not go down. It is just that the rate of increase is reduced. Unless the Minister actually matches social welfare payments to the inflation that people in the most deprived sections of our communities are feeling, the consequence will be that more and more people will be pushed into poverty.

The Minister says she wants to see money in people's pockets. That is great. I want to see money in people's pockets, but the best way to do that is to increase the money going into their pockets through social welfare payments. If we do not do that, we are just pushing people further and further into crisis.

This is real. The Barnardos survey at the end of last year shows that the number of parents using food banks doubled over the course of the year. One in ten parents used them. That is an horrific reality, and a very large proportion of those people are obviously reliant on entirely inadequate social welfare payments.

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