Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tá an cuma ar an scéal nach dtuigeann an Rialtas an práinn a bhaineann le déileáil leis an ghéarchéim maidir le costais maireachtála na tíre seo. Tá a gcuid réiteach ró-bheag agus ró-mhall agus caithfear réitigh a chur i ngníomh atá dírithe orthu siúd ar ioncaim íseal agus orthu siúd atá ar mheánioncaim. Tá daoine ag streachailt. B'fhéidir nach dtuigeann an Tánaiste seo ach caithfidh an Rialtas tacú leo anois, gan mhoill.

For the past year Sinn Féin has been calling on the Government to get a grip on the cost of living crisis. What has the Government done? It has talked about it a lot in recent weeks but it appears that it is about to announce a package of measures that will only scratch the surface. People are telling me the Government simply does not get it and that it does not understand the challenges facing ordinary workers and families. If the Government needed an example of that, it is this. A Minister of State went on national radio telling people to stop complaining, while behind closed doors the Tánaiste, the Taoiseach, the leader of the Green Party and their Cabinet colleagues signed off on an €86,000 increase for a senior public servant who is now on a salary of nearly €300,000 per year. The Government announced an electricity credit of €100 last year that still has not been delivered and will not be delivered for weeks to come. I ask the Tánaiste not to try to repackage that as some new initiative today. People need support now and they have already been waiting four months for that €100.

I am not sure if the Tánaiste had the opportunity to listen to May on “Morning Ireland” this morning. May is from County Wexford and she wears a dressing gown over her clothes and drinks hot tea to stay warm because she cannot afford her heating bills. Maybe he listened to Hugh from Leitrim, who has had to cut back on food because of the rise in prices. There are thousands of people like Hugh and May. Rising prices effect everybody but it does not impact everybody equally. Low and middle income households spend more on heating their homes, on feeding their families and on rent than those at the top do and they do so with less money. This morning, the Society St. Vincent de Paul found that two in five people have cut back on essential heating and electricity.

Workers and families need targeted support now and they need a Government that is willing to act and listen now. We need a direct cost of living cash payment, as Sinn Féin has proposed, of €200 for individuals on incomes of €30,000 or less and €100 for individuals on incomes between €30,000 and €60,000. This would provide households with direct support of more than €500 in response to the cost of living crisis. We need to get money into people’s hands now. For some, they will use it to pay their gas and electricity bills and for others it will be a fill of oil or ensuring they have enough diesel in their cars so they can get to work.

It is time to wake up to the reality and it is time for the Tánaiste and his Government colleagues to understand where ordinary people are. Will the Government bring forward a targeted cost of living cash payment as we have proposed? Will the Government put one month of rent back into renter’s pockets and ban rent increases for the next three years? For God’s sake, will the Government stop the increase in oil and gas prices which it plans to implement in the month of May by heaping additional carbon taxes on people?

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