School Costs Dail Éireann — 2022-07-14 ============================================================ Heather Humphreys (FG), Cavan-Monaghan Over recent months, the Government has announced a package of €2.4 billion to help people meet the cost of living and the cost of fuel. I am the Minister for Social Protection and my priority is to assist those on low and fixed incomes and to keep people out of poverty. That is my number one priority. We have the working family payment. I understand that there are people who do not qualify for this payment. I accept that they are working hard but the best way to support them is through a comprehensive tax package. The Deputy knows that the Government has committed to providing a comprehensive tax package of more than €1 billion in the coming budget, which is less than 11 weeks away now. That is how we can help those people who do not qualify for these payments. However, the Deputy will appreciate that, as Minister for Social Protection, my number one priority is to keep people out of poverty and to target those on low incomes and those most in need. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2022-07-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:59+00:00 Sitting date: 2022-07-14