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

----while workers are having their pockets looted as a result of increased energy prices and rents that are utterly stratospheric and totally unaffordable. The Taoiseach did not answer my question about how workers are supposed to pay for these things.

He also did not mention the fact that profits in the last decade have gone up by 172%. He did not mention that we now have nine billionaires in this country, according to an Oxfam report, who have €42 billion between them. That sum has increased dramatically during the pandemic. That is the elephant in the room that the Government never wants to talk about. Some people are doing very well from price inflation, including the profiteering energy companies and the landlords whose income from rents has gone through the roof. The Government never talks about them. It is okay for the workers to take it in the neck. It is okay for their pockets to be rifled to pay unaffordable bills, unaffordable rents and unaffordable food prices. They can manage it. It is always possible to loot their pockets but it is never possible to put a bit of extra tax on those who can well afford it.

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