Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Can the Taoiseach honestly say to workers, pensioners and people on low and average incomes, with a straight face, that the paltry set of measures he announced last Thursday to deal with the catastrophic rise in the cost of living is adequate? Can he seriously suggest that is the case? Average heating and energy costs are due to go up by about €800 a year. The Government is giving people back €200 a year and a little bit extra on the fuel allowance. Who is supposed to pay the rest for workers whose wages are increasing at maybe 1%, for public sector workers, or for pensioners and social welfare recipients who got an extra fiver in the budget? Who is supposed to pay the rest?

What about rents? There is absolutely nothing on that in the measures. Rents are up 10% year-on-year according to daft.ie. Average rents in Dublin for a one-bedroom property are now €1,500, with the average for a two-bedroom property at €2,000. People would need between €17,000 and €24,000 in income just to pay the rent. There is nothing to deal with the unaffordable situation in rents. Then we have the wider cost of living, including food etc which is up by at least 5.7% and probably more. Where are workers supposed to make up the difference? Can the Taoiseach honestly it is enough? It is an absolute insult.

Yesterday, in an interview, the Taoiseach ruled out another possibility. We proposed last week that there be rent controls, caps on energy prices and the bringing up of wages. He is not willing to do any of those things to control the spiralling cost of living. He said yesterday that we cannot rid of the universal social charge, USC, because it would be too expensive to do so. Of course, that is not what Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were saying before the election in 2016, when the now Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, said, as part of pre-election promises, the USC would be gone for everybody earning less than €80,000 within five years.

Paudie Coffey, who was Minister of State at the time, said in a press release and a Fine Gael manifesto that his party would get rid of the USC altogether. All of that is gone now; too expensive, apparently. As a result, we cannot give workers a break by getting rid of the USC. My question to the Taoiseach is if he honestly believes this is adequate? How are people supposed to pay their unaffordable rents or come up with the hundreds of euros extra in heating and energy costs if the Government rules out all of these things? Why is it that it is always alright for the workers to pay? They can afford it, but the Taoiseach says that we cannot afford to give them a break on the USC, that we cannot afford rent controls or that we cannot afford the energy price hikes, even though landlords-----

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