Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Ó Broin rightly described the Minister's remarks as disingenuous. I would go further and say, if anything, they came across as disinterested in the realities that face many of the people we all represent. Unfortunately, it is not surprising because from time to time we have heard the real inclinations of a Government that is quite simply out of touch: from a Fianna Fáil Minister of State telling people to shop around, to a Green Party leader telling us to drive slower, to a Fine Gael Minister for Finance who tonight essentially confirmed that he has no intention of doing anything further. The next measure that this Government will implement regarding the cost of living crisis is to increase those costs further through an additional hike in the carbon tax in May.

This is not fair. It is not fair on those ordinary people who are consistently asking themselves what the Government has delivered to alleviate the increased prices they are bearing on essential heating, travel and electricity costs, but who are largely coming up blank.

We are a food-producing nation and an affluent State. It is not good enough that families with two earning workers have to make the stark choice, as they do today, between eating or heating their homes. I am sure the Minister knows people who are in this position. Certainly, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys does, because they are her constituents as well as mine. They tell me about keeping an eye on the gauge as they travel home, holding their breath, hoping they can make it and trying to get through today because they are afraid to even think about tomorrow. There has never been a boom for many of those same workers; just a bust. This Government has forced upon many of those people exorbitant rents or mortgage rates, childcare costs and insurance premiums and is now, through its lack of support, leaving them with the choice about how they can put food on the table.

Sinn Féin has put forward proposals that will make things a little better. They will not resolve everything because we understand the Government cannot do everything but it can do much more. It is shameful that Government Deputies will, in effect, vote through an amendment this week that proposes precisely nothing additional is done to help those hard-pressed workers and families.

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