asked the Taoiseach if he will furnish the latest available information, if any, regarding the number of people in Ireland living below subsistence level.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Subsistence Level Statistics.
3.
There are no official statistics of the kind requested by the Deputy.
Might I point out that the National Prices Commission—
A question Deputy Moore, please.
I am coming to that. They point out that in fact in Dublin——
The Deputy is pointing out again. He is making a statement rather than asking a question.
I am asking the Parliamentary Secretary a question if I am allowed to do so. I am entitled to do that.
I want to assist the Deputy if he will ask the question.
Has the Parliamentary Secretary seen the report issued by the National Prices Commission which states that a high percentage of lower income elderly people in Dublin have a nutritionally inadequate diet? What do the Government intend to do about this?
The Deputy is entering into the area of policy which is a matter for the appropriate Minister. The Parliamentary Secretary is responsible only for furnishing the figures which the Deputy requested.
The figures in the terms in which the Deputy wants to have them given are just not available. If the Deputy had asked about nutrition levels it might have been possible to give him some information but, perhaps, not enough for his purposes. In fact, the figures which the Deputy requested, namely, on income levels, are not compiled or kept by the Statistics Office.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare has given the figure from time to time of the number of people living below the poverty line as varying from 25,000 to 150,000? Can the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach indicate how one Parliamentary Secretary can give an answer to the question while another Parliamentary Secretary has not got the information?
I can. My responsibility in doing these questions on behalf of the Taoiseach relates purely to the work of the Central Statistics Office. As every Deputy in the House knows, there is a wide difference between a departmental estimate of the kind which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare might give on the one hand and a firm statistical figure on the other hand, which is what the CSO is for, and I cannot give that.
I did not make any reference to the Central Statistics Office. I asked the Taoiseach to furnish the latest available information, if any, regarding the number of people living below subsistence level. If one Government Department have that information surely the Taoiseach should be able to give that information to the House.
That is not so.
We are now having repetition.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary trying to cover up the terrible situation which now confronts the nation with the number of people living below the poverty line?
The Deputy looks the part.
Arising from the confusion which is quite evident on the Government side of the House, with your permission, Sir, I should like to raise this matter on the Adjournment.
I will communicate with the Deputy.
There is no confusion. Week after week the Taoiseach is asked the question which arrives on his desk only because of his departmental responsibility for the CSO. He answers it if he can, and he does not if he cannot. Questions on departmental matters should be addressed to the office holder specifically concerned.
Why are such statistics not available? Is it not fair to say the reason for their non-availability is that the census of population is not being published?
That is another question.
The Deputy's colleague asked for the latest available figures and presumably these would have been available if they had arisen from the former census. Figures of the kind the Deputy wants are not collected or kept and, therefore, I cannot give them.