Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As stated, we will have a planned approach to this in the context of 2026. In every budget, we publish a distributional analysis. There is a consideration of well-being. A whole range of indices are published by the Departments of Finance and public expenditure. We have committed ourselves to progressive budgeting over the next number of years. We are also committing ourselves to returning to a more standard budgetary process, which is done in parallel with a medium-term fiscal plan, which we have to submit to the European Commission to have that anchor of fiscal discipline. There will be broader discussion on that in advance of the summer period, when we have the summer economic statement and the medium-term fiscal plan. In the decisions we took through the inflationary crisis, there was progressivity at the core, including in the double payments for many specific social welfare payments, like foster carer's allowance, the carer's support grant, the disability allowance, the blind pension, the invalidity pension and the domiciliary care allowance. We are cognisant of the need to target supports. A significant social protection package will be developed within the envelope that is available in budget 2026. Much of that will be to support the families and households to which the Deputy referred.

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