Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The cost-of-living crisis did not just fall from the sky overnight. It has been here with us for many months. We have been raising that with the Government. Indeed, we raised that with the Government before the budget. The Government failed to protect adequately those social welfare recipients who pay three times more on energy costs than the wealthiest in the State.

As a result, under the package for which the budget has been approved, they are going to be poorer by hundreds of euro this year than they were last year. We have a proposal on the way to do this, which is to insulate them from the cost-of-living crisis by increasing core social welfare payments by 5%. The Government plans to increase the cost of oil and gas for households on 1 May, less than three months from now. The price of gas will increase by €17 and by €19 for every fill of home heating oil. The cost of the latter has already increased by 53%. Can the Tánaiste state that he will stop that increase taking place at a time when people are seriously struggling?

Rent also has a serious impact in the context of inflation. Rent is increasing by 8%. We need to ban rent increases. We have put those proposals before the Government not weeks or months but years ago. We must put back into people's pockets a refundable tax credit of up to €1,500. Cutting the cost of childcare is another way to reduce the cost of living on these families. It should be reduced by a third and the proper investment should be made.

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