Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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Briefly, the restrictions path that this Government has taken over the last two years was an outlier restriction path. It was not followed by any other European country. That led to significant damage to supply chains in the State. I mentioned to the Minister earlier today that we were the only country in the whole of the European Union that closed building sites for four months last year, while we have the biggest housing crisis in all of the European Union. That has meant that 10,000 houses were not built. Supply is a big influence on the price of houses, as well as on rent.

The Minister has done a wonderful job in studiously ignoring the name of Robert Watt in both of his answers. He has studiously ignored the €84,000 pay hike that one civil servant achieved in the space of one year. There is a contrast to be made between the largesse in wage inflation that was in the control of the Government, with the fall in income and the fall in spending power for citizens across the country. Citizens experience frustration right now when they see those two different Irelands. There is the Ireland in which they exist, where cumulatively, all the measures that the Minister for Finance has mentioned have less effect on their spending power than the inflation and the cost of living they are experiencing. That is their Ireland. Yet, the area that the Minister of Finance controls sees senior civil servants magically achieve €84,000 pay hikes in the space of one year. Will the Minister for Finance address that pay hike and how it reflects on the rest of society?