I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I also welcome the fact that it gives us a chance to talk about not just the social welfare element but also auto-enrolment, which some of my colleagues will focus on. As we near the start date, the issues that are arising are coming to the fore for people and there is less and less time to deal with the questions that are arising as time is running out. To deal with the first part of this first, as it were, we are here to legislate for measures that were in budget 2026. I remind people, the Minister in particular, that at a time when the Exchequer has a surplus of billions of euro, and the economy, the Government keeps telling us, is supposedly booming, poverty is rising for workers and families, particularly children, at an alarming rate not seen since the recession. For essential welfare payments like disability allowance, jobseeker's payments and the State pension, the Government has decided that it will not even keep them in line with inflation. For the people who depend on these payments and their families, their welfare payments are actually worth less now than they were in 2020. The Minister and I both know that nothing about this is inevitable. This is a choice Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Lowry group have made. We are not in a recession; it should not feel to people like we are. The money is available for redistribution but this Government does not seem interested in doing that. In the same year as over 300,000 households are currently in arrears on their electricity bills and one in five children continues to grow up in poverty, the Government is giving a €10.4 million tax cut to millionaires under the special assignee relief programme, narrowing the fiscal base, squeezing those who are in the middle and working people, and refusing to tax the booming economic growth progressively. I will ask the Minister a couple of questions and maybe he can answer them in his summing up. He gave a commitment that the carer's allowance means test would be abolished over the lifetime of the Government. I have asked this question repeatedly and am yet to get a satisfactory answer. He allocated €10 million in the budget for a half year. That is simple enough maths. That is €20 million for a full year, unless maths has changed since I was in school. He tells me in responses to parliamentary questions I ask that it will cost €600 million to phase the means test out. By that logic, with €20 million allocated, if the Minister continues at the current pace, it will take him 30 years. Can he tell us in real terms when the carer's allowance means test will be abolished, how he will achieve that and how he thinks allocating €1.8 million less this year than he did last year will achieve that goal? It strikes me that we are going backwards. I also want to ask the Minister about some aspects of the auto-enrolment programme because we have a chance to discuss that today. There are some gaps in My Future Fund. The presentations are good, the flyers have gone out and all of that has been grand, but there are some issues occurring in real time and, as we get closer to the deadline, people are starting to get a little worried. These are issues we have raised with the Minister's office and I hope we will get to the bottom of them. There are issues around agencies that are solely funded by the State and the provision that has been made in that regard. I will have a chance to discuss this with the Minister tomorrow during parliamentary questions. I sincerely hope his answer is not that they have had years to prepare for this. If that is his answer, I respectfully suggest that he go away and get another answer because that is not fair. There are men and women working really hard, let us not forget. They are the people on the front line of the Government's homeless crisis and its healthcare waiting lists. They are working incredibly hard but they want to know what provision has been made by the Government - their employer, essentially. I know the Department does not wish to establish an employment relationship with them but, notwithstanding that, where you are the sole funder, you are effectively in the position of an employer. What provision has been made? What has the Department done proactively to ensure that these people will be able to participate in this scheme? We know why auto-enrolment was implemented. Auto-enrolment was not implemented because the Minister looked into his heart and thought working people should provide for their pensions and their retirement. Auto-enrolment was implemented simply because the Government knows that the members of generation rent are ageing and that they will be renting when they have retired and because it is necessary to make provision for that. Again, that is more money going into the private sector. Auto-enrolment is not what is needed. It will not prevent pension poverty because a lot of what is being done will be eaten up by rising rents. Those who are working in the sector, where they are solely funded by the State, are now starting to panic about how provision is going to be made for them. I want to discuss a letter that was sent to the Minister by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in relation to pay-related job seeker's benefit. Buried in the budget is a decision that the Minister took not to increase that benefit in line with other provisions and measures. We have discussed this back and forth. In its alternative budget, Sinn Féin's indicated where it felt the money that the State has should be directed. Clearly, we believe that money should be directed towards those people in society who need it the most. For the avoidance of any doubt, that is not vulture funds, property developers or any of the other people the Government chose to ensure benefited from its budget. It is wholly unsatisfactory that jobseekers and those who are dependent on social welfare will receive an increase to their weekly allowances of €10. As we know, that increase will not ensure that those allowances will keep pace with inflation. It appears that those people who are on pay-related job seeker's benefit will not receive an increase. The media reported that the Minister's response in this regard is that this is a new scheme and the matter is still under review. The cost-of-living figures are there. We are aware of the increase in grocery prices. As I was coming here this morning, I heard a discussion on rising rents. In the past couple of years, rents have increased by one third. Where does that leave people? The Minister mentioned not wanting a cliff edge, but if pay-related jobseeker's benefit is not going to be increased, then the people involved will fall even further behind. Those who will be getting a very modest increase as a result of the budget are already falling behind the rising rate of inflation. People whose only crime has been to work hard and pay higher PRSI as a quid pro quo for having this pay-related jobseeker's benefit will fall even further behind. For them, the cliff edge will become even more stark and the drop will become even greater. Will the Minister perhaps address that matter in his closing remarks and share with us the rationale behind it? Saying that this is a new scheme is not going to cut it for people. The Minister needs to explain the link between the increased PRSI and the trade-off for that, which does not seem to be there. This is something that punishes people for the crime of working. Surely, the Minister can do better than that for people and can outline what his thinking was in making that decision. The people who are dependent on social welfare are already going to fall even further behind. We know the payments that they are getting are worth as much as they were in 2020, but the cost of everything has gone up. This is causing people who are dependent on social welfare to fall even further behind. We in Sinn Féin have serious issues. We do not have an issue with auto-enrolment, which, as we have said, is a concept that would be an idea in the hands of another government. The way the Government has rigged it, however, means that it is just a transfer of money into the private sector, which, in and of itself, will not benefit working people or the working poor. There was a different way to do it. The Government could have ensured that money was driving infrastructure development and housing. Instead, it is a bonanza for the private sector.

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The Leas-Cheann Comhairle can try.

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I am doing the lotto tonight.

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