Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will take the Deputy's point about the delays in processing disability payments back to the Minister. This is the first budget with benchmarking even in the mix. There is a stronger role for it going forward to ensure adequacy. We continue to see social transfers play significant impacts on reducing poverty and income inequality. Ireland remains one of the most effective countries in the EU in this regard. The at-risk of poverty rate before social transfers was 36% in 2022. This reduced to 13% after transfers were included. That represents an overall poverty reduction effect of 64%. An independent post-budget analysis from the ESRI further found that the package of measures introduced under the budget ensures there are gains in disposable income for all household types, with lone parents and pensioners living alone recording the largest proportional increases. I welcome the first budget where we have used benchmarking as an input. I would like to see it as a bigger part of the discussion in future budgets as well.

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