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

You are welcome. It is a statement of fact. It is also a statement of fact what I said earlier but the Deputy is not willing to accept those facts. In 2016, the Labour Party and Fine Gael together established the Low Pay Commission. Since then the national minimum wage has increased by 26%. Inflation has increased by 7%. While the Deputy is talking and speechifying and demanding increases in the national minimum wage, we have actually done it. We have increased the minimum wage ahead of inflation since 2016. I appreciate we do not know what inflation will be like for this year and that that may not turn out to be the case. That is why we need to take other actions. However, the facts are that, since the Low Pay Commission was established in 2016, the minimum wage has gone up 26% and the cost of living has gone up by 7%. That is a real increase in real terms. We have the second highest minimum wage in the developed world. When you adjust for the higher cost of living in Ireland, it is the sixth highest. Median wages in Ireland are 36% higher than the European average despite claims by some that the opposite is the case.

Once again, I emphasise that the issue of rising costs and the costs of living is very much on the mind of everyone in the Government. There is a competition in this House, sometimes led by the Opposition but sometimes by Deputies of all parties, to make out that X person understands things more than Y person. That is nonsense. We are all elected by our communities. We all have constituents, constituency clinics and offices, and the exact same people are saying the same to the Deputy that they are saying to me - that they have noticed a huge increase in the cost of filling the car with petrol or diesel, that they are shocked when they see their gas or electricity bill, that they are noticing prices rising in the supermarket - and they are worried that it will keep rising. That is the biggest worry in many ways, that prices will continue to rise. That is why we had a €1 billion cost of living package in the budget which only kicked in in January and why we will make further decisions today to help all households with their energy bills as well as some targeted measures for those on the lowest incomes who need that help the most. So while the Deputy is speaking and preaching, we are actually taking action.

See this speech in context