Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This year, the cost of food is expected to rise by almost €800 with the running cost of the average car to increase by €500. Rents and heat costs are skyrocketing. They are completely out of control. We are ordinary people. The increase in cost inflation is not just affecting the poorest; it is affecting everyone. I refer, for example, to people's ability to pay for childcare, their mortgage, or college and school fees. We must look at the poorest in society, who will be most affected by this. The cost of heating and food, and petrol and diesel for trying to get to work and school, affects ordinary people. The Government's solution is an increase of €100. It is unbelievable. The Government should be offering solutions.

We have just come out of a pandemic, which many people struggled to get through. They are on a knife-edge. Here we are now at the start of 2022 and many people will not be able to afford to keep a roof over their heads or the heating on. Chefs in hospitals, dental assistants and people who kept the country afloat during the pandemic are getting paid less than the living wage.

The Tánaiste is calling on private employers to increase wages. They should do so, and we support that. However, what happens to public sector workers who are being paid a pittance to work in understaffed hospitals? Those workers will leave and hospitals will be left with even fewer staff members. What is the Tánaiste's answer? The Taoiseach yesterday called for wage restraint but the Tánaiste was in the newspapers this morning calling for companies to increase people's wages. There is an ideological clash between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. We know how Fine Gael has operated and its attitude of letting the market decide things. If we leave ordinary people without support during this crisis, they will suffer and it will be on the watch of the Government.

We are leaving people in the cold, worried about paying their bills and buying food. The Government is standing idly by. The Tánaiste is trying to place the blame away from the Government and a decade of Fine Gael policies that decimated our health service and local authorities. Rents were allowed to go through the roof, as were house prices. Fine Gael has neglected the most vulnerable in society.

There has been a lot of talk about the living wage. We say that rent increases should be banned for three years. A month's rent should be given back to renters every year. Carbon taxes have hurt the most vulnerable. We are looking for action. We are pleading for it. I support this Labour Party motion because it goes to the heart of the lives of ordinary people. We must always remember that those who are on social welfare will be the worst affected but they will not be the only ones. Anyone who is trying to live life, pay bills and look after a family will be affected if the Government does not act.

See this speech in context