Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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With your indulgence, Chair, I will just add a word in response to the earlier exchange and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, will come in on the funding issues for mental health.

The Deputy is correct, overall, on the issue of corporate profitability. This is something the IMF has examined and published. That is why, in the case of energy for example, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has brought forward the solidarity contribution and the cap on market revenues. We can go into that in a moment if the Deputy wishes. It is also a reality that the more we spend as a Government, the more we add to inflation. The very people we seek to protect and help will end up carrying the burden of that. It becomes a vicious circle if we seek to address inflation by spending more and more money, and thereby keeping inflation higher for longer, which will help to keep interest rates higher for longer. We will just end going around in circles and the phase we are in now in this cycle, will just last for longer than is necessary.

The Deputy is correct that the priority must be to protect people who are most vulnerable. We do believe the combination of all that we done so far has gone a long way towards doing that. We are not suggesting for a moment that anybody has been fully insulated in reality. The Deputy is right that when it comes to costs that are unavoidable such as heating a home, groceries, and transport costs, it has been really tough. The Government did not cause this level of inflation. We are trying to respond in an appropriate way that helps people in the best way we can, while also trying to allow inflation to fall because we all benefit from that.