Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a very simplistic kind of presentation, which goes on all the time. It is the social contract, to varying degrees. We might disagree as to where the balance of the social contract is but the social contract is society raising revenue through the elected government of the day and rebalancing that revenue out in education services, childcare services, health services, mental health services and infrastructure.

These are the very issues that Deputies will consistently come into the House and raise with Ministers, asking why we do not have extra money to spend on this or on that. We have a very strong social welfare code in Ireland which requires a lot of revenue and that revenue has to be raised. Substantial revenues have to be raised. People may argue that it is not enough and others will argue differently but we cannot get away from the fact that huge sums of money are involved in social protection, education and health in particular which reflects the majority view in terms of how we want to organise society. The Government must raise revenue on behalf of society to be able to do the things it wants to do and that involves PRSI as well. One of the big challenges in higher and further education is the need to dramatically increase the number of skills programmes to upskill the economy for retrofitting, offshore wind and apprenticeships generally across all of the trades. That is working and the funding we have provided is definitely yielding results in terms of increased applications for apprenticeships.

A balance must be struck but I accept that there is a big pressure on energy prices at the moment. I have no doubt about that and agree with the Deputy. We brought in a modest taxation package in the budget which was designed to make a contribution towards helping people. We also increased the fuel allowance and provided other welfare increases to try to cushion the blow from higher energy prices. The Government is keeping under review the issue of the impact of global energy price increases on households. I fully accept that energy prices are putting pressure on many families and households but this is very much a global phenomenon. The European Central Bank is saying that it will be a short-term issue and that after the first quarter of next year, prices will begin to recede but we will have to monitor and review that very closely to see what further help we can give.

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