Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the freak budgetary interventions, we have not even completed this budget, as the Deputy knows. He has summarised very well the fact that it is only a few days away, which the Minister, Deputy McGrath, and I are keenly aware of. When we do our budget and announce our measures, that will include measures for 2022 that we do not anticipate changing. The Minister has made the point, and I fully agree with him, that if we get an EU-wide measure that we are able to opt in to, we will then use that money to fund measures that will help households and businesses. We are a little away from that at present. I do not want to create a sense that when the Government brings forward this budget in a week and a half's time, we will then have new, different and additional measures a few weeks later. We are trying to outline a set of measures we believe will work and help and that will go across the rest of this year. We will do our best to get that balance right first time.

We are very much aware of the business issue the Deputy referred to. We are obviously working hard to see what measures can be put in place that will help. We have made the case to the committee that what we have done over the past number of years has worked, but this situation is very different from Covid.