Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said earlier, these interest rate increases are most unwelcome, particularly for people who have tracker mortgages or are seeing their variable mortgage rates go up and go up dramatically. It would be wrong of me not to acknowledge that the European Central Bank, ECB, is raising interest rates to bring inflation down and to restore price stability. This is why it is being done. Unfortunately, the impact on people who have tracker mortgages is very severe. We are happy to consider any proposals that the Sinn Féin party wants to make. We are happy to examine them and to cost them. We would need to know the cost and that is significant. This does matter, particularly out of the context of the budget cycle. Second, we would have to examine it from a holistic point of view as well. Mortgage rates in Ireland have been at historically-low levels now for a number of years. In some cases, people who were paying very low rates on tracker mortgages are now paying rates that other people have actually been paying for quite some time. We would have to take this into account in any benefit or concession we might give to people.

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