Dr. Tom McDonnell:

Which hat will I wear? The two budgets are not budgets that one would feel are moving lockstep with the commission's reports. There was a continuation of tax expenditures and measures that may have been understandable with the cost-of-living crisis, which worked against the climate agenda. Households could have been protected in different ways. The way to protect households is benchmarking and indexation and focusing on the adequacy issues. To give the Government a pass, one could ask whether there was some administrative reason it could not do it that quickly. However, it had been well signalled from February or March that a cost-of-living crisis was coming.

It could certainly be argued that budget 2023 and the cost-of-living measures announced yesterday are not consistent with the broad findings and recommendations of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare's report, at least, to date. The failure to index welfare payments was especially disappointing in budget 2023. That did not happen yesterday. Inflation in 2022 averaged at 7.8%. We think it might be in the range of 6%. The European Commission came out with a slightly lower figure. That seemed optimistic. There is considerable debate as to what will happen. If that 6% is put on top of the 7.8%, we are looking at 14%. The Government threw once-off measures at various groups, which are helpful and welcome, but its overall plan is likely to lead to deprivation increasing in 2023. Does Mr. Nugent agree with that?