Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the representatives of IFAC for their report and contributions. The impact of the inflation crisis has been uneven. Would our guests go even further and say there are winners and losers in this situation? It is not just that the impact is uneven. Would it be fair comment that some people are being hammered while others are doing very well? I would be interested to hear our guests' views on that question. I note that corporate profits and net household wealth are up. Somebody is doing well out of all of this and it is certainly not the majority of low- and middle-income households, who are being hit disproportionately hard, as our guests have alluded to. Even the headline inflation rate does not take into account the hit that low- and middle-income families are taking.

I know IFAC does not get into policy suggestions but one possible approach to dealing with this situation is to insulate people's incomes against the impact of inflation and to do that, if I understood what our guests have said, would cost €700 million. Was that the relevant figure? The problem is that €700 million would take us over the 5% rule. I am generally in favour of insulating people's incomes, wages and so on from the impact of inflation. One approach could be to take money back from those who have benefited from this situation to insulate the losers fully and ensure there are no winners. The Government's mantra is it cannot fully insulate people against the impacts of inflation. That is the Government's view. I do not think that is a statement of fact but is rather a statement of policy. The Government has decided it is not going to insulate people fully from the impact of inflation because the cost would be too high and perhaps it would take us over the 5% rule. The Government could do it if it wanted to. That is a consideration.

Another consideration that is never debated is we should ensure there are no winners. I am not asking our guests to advocate for that position but is it something we might consider as an option? In the current circumstances, no excess profits should be made because that is not fair when the income of other people is being hit. That would be a legitimate policy consideration. Perhaps we might even cap profits. We always talk about capping wages and a need to limit wage increases, social welfare increases and pension increases because the skies might fall on us if we let them rip. The possibility we might cap profits, wealth and very high salaries is never considered. As I said, I am not asking our guests to advocate for that position because I know IFAC does not advocate particular policy measures but is that a legitimate thing to consider in the range of options that is open to the Government? Is it possible for us to consider insulating all the people who are losing as a result of inflation through direct expenditure, income rises or whatever it might be and to ensure there are no winners and nobody is benefiting from this situation?