Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No. That is incorrect. For the record, the Minister for Finance did not have to approve it and did not.

Pepper is regulated and all mortgage holders whose mortgages have been sold on will continue to have the same consumer rights and protections as they did beforehand. We will make sure that this is the case.

I discussed the ESRI reports earlier. It is based on a wage index model. There are different models including an inflation index model and a low-index model and each one produces different results. The ESRI is saying that pensions are going up next year, welfare is going up next year, income tax is going down and USC is going down but because 1.5 million people are getting a pay increase of roughly 3% as well as all of that, everyone is worse off. It is a particular model based on a wage index. If one looks at it differently wages are going up: the minium wage, public sector wages and private sector wages. Pensions are going up, welfare is going up, income tax is going down and USC is going down. Everyone is better off in cash terms. Even when one adjusts for inflation, everyone is better off in cash terms.

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