Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2025-10-14 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central Consistent poverty is what we have to deal with. Our child poverty programme in the budget was very significant, the highest in a very long time. The once-off payments were just that, for two years in a row and before that. During the Covid pandemic and the energy crisis, we had to intervene. They are not sustainable over the decade and they cannot just keep going on. We would not have sustainable public finances if we went down that route. Equally, it is arguable that very wealthy people do not need an energy credit. The Deputy is arguing that they do. I find that incredible. --- 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/2025-10-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:04+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-10-14