Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On two occasions in the last few days, I have witnessed very disturbing sights while I have been in checkout queues in supermarkets. I have experienced people simply not having enough money to pay for all of the shopping in their trolleys. I have seen this with my own two eyes. It is disturbing. There is no dignity in this. It saddens and shames us as a society. I have witnessed people having to put shopping back and having those difficult conversations with checkout staff. That is the sad reality for far too many people in this country this very day and week. It is an experience that is recounted to me continuously in my constituency clinics and constituency office. It is sadly all too reminiscent of experiences many of us had in our families in the 1980s and early 1990s before the Irish economy took off.

We know we are experiencing an almost once-in-a-generation spike in inflation and rise in the cost of living and that these are not impacting on everybody equally. The Government will say that it has done all it can to mitigate the impact of the rising cost of living on those experiencing it most adversely but the truth is - and this is not just a cliché or trope that is usually trotted out by the Opposition as the Government routinely claims - that there is more the Government can do. We know that many aspects of the cost-of-living crisis are beyond the control of the Government. That is the truth and we all accept that. However, the Government has not used every tool available to it to address the rising cost of living and the adverse impact this is having on those who are on low incomes, those who live in rural areas and those who are not sufficiently covered by the social protection system. The signature measure of €200 off energy bills is a case in point. The bulk of this money was directed at those who, it can be argued, do not need it most and have not felt the pinch in the way that those who most need support have. This is what the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, has said, so the Minister of State does not need to trust me on that point. The additional measures the Government needs to be planning ahead of budget 2023 need to be properly targeted to ensure that those who need the most support get the most support from this State and Government.

In truth, Ireland needs a pay rise. We are a low-pay economy. Some 23% of all Irish workers are considered to be on low pay. Those in the teeth of this cost-of-living crisis are the low-paid and older citizens. We should use pay policy and the tools at the disposal of the Government to help people to make their income go further. What do I mean by that? I mean the Government using the resources available to it cleverly to, for example, reduce health costs by introducing free GP care for all children. This has been promised for a long time but it will only be delivered for the under-sevens in the coming months. I also mean investing in something for which my colleague, Deputy Ó Ríordáin, has been calling for many years, that is, €20 million a year to ensure that schoolbooks are free for all children going to primary school and €20 million to ensure that schoolbooks are free for children going to secondary school. The Government has made some announcements with regard to access to public transport but more needs to be done and many of the announced initiatives have been delayed. One of the key things we need to do is to expand eligibility for the fuel allowance. In the context of the cost-of-living crisis we are experiencing today, it is criminal that so many people are outside of the fuel allowance threshold. As everybody in this House knows, that means they are also outside of the eligibility criteria for the warmer homes schemes.

We should not pretend that the motion before us today is motivated by a deep-seated concern for the working class, child poverty or the elimination and obliteration of fuel poverty or by a passion for making Ireland a country that is much fairer and more equal. We know that the Rural Independent Group opposes carbon tax and carbon pricing. It always has and has made no secret of it. In a way, that is fair enough. It is honest and upfront about that. There are other groups - the Sinn Féin Party, for example - which want to have it every way. They want to have it both ways, at the very least. If it was poverty that was keeping members of the Rural Independent Group awake at night, they would be arguing for the redistribution of wealth in this deeply unequal society, day in and day out, in this Chamber and elsewhere. They would not, as they routinely do, oppose increases in the national minimum wage to increase the incomes of the lowest paid people in this country. Indeed, some of the signatories of this particular motion even argued, in the context of debate on last year's Finance Act, that the universal social charge should be dramatically reduced, if not abolished. That would have been an assault on lower paid people in this country who depend on the public services the USC supports day in and day out.

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