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

The Deputy makes a very reasonable point around the cost of food. Like him, I do not believe food security or food shortages are going to be a problem, in Ireland anyway. However, if what is happening with energy prices continues and if what is happening in Russia and Ukraine unfolds, then there is a real probability that the price of food will go up here in Ireland and in western Europe. We have benefited from cheap food for a very long time. I think the price of food is going to go up, and the question is how we deal with that. That is going to be about helping farmers with costs, and we will do that, but it is also going to be about incomes policy. There has to be a recognition that if the price of things rises, if the cost of living rises, then incomes are going to have to rise as well. I know that when we wrote the budget back in September, we planned the budget based on the idea that inflation would be somewhere between 2% and 3%. We have to acknowledge that, when it comes to the next budget, we are in a different place and that will have to be reflected in what we do in terms of pensions, the welfare package, personal taxation and incomes policy.

See this speech in context