Dr. Kieran McQuinn:

Whatever intervention measures are introduced – more will probably be required to meet the cost-of-living challenges – one of the key challenges will be to ensure they are as targeted as possible. In our opening statement, we referred to how overheating pressures had been building in the Irish economy before the pandemic and were building again after exiting the pandemic in a robust fashion. In the absence of all these crises, the danger is that we would have overheating in the economy. Therefore, any measure that we introduce, such as measures to support family incomes, should be as targeted as possible. Those are the kinds of measure that one can envisage at this stage. Given that it is difficult for the Government to introduce interventions that can deal with some of the global-related issues, this is about supporting family incomes and ensuring that the least privileged in society are insulated from the cost-of-living hikes that we will face.

It is early at this stage to prescribe supports for businesses in terms of the duration of the effects and so on, but something like what we saw during the pandemic may be required. Does Dr. O'Toole wish to discuss supports for businesses?