Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have also decreased the excise duty on petrol, diesel and green diesel, saving motorists between €9 and €12 each time they fill their tank. Public transport fares are now down 20% and 50% for young people. We have changed health costs for people with changes to the drugs payment scheme threshold. In education, we took measures on examination fees. We reduced VAT from 13.5% to 9% on gas and electricity bills and we also gave a €200 energy credit to every household. We cut the annual PSO levy by €58 to zero by October 2022. We have launched a national retrofitting scheme and new grant rates that will cover 80% of the typical cost of attic and wall insulations. We have put caps on school transport fees. We have also brought forward the working family payment budget. We are abolishing the €80 inpatient hospital charge for children, and that will be expanded more broadly. We have taken specific measures for hauliers, tillage farmers and for hospitality, which the Deputy spoke for, on a consistent basis.

Inflation is projected to rise by 6.5% overall this year and 3% in 2023. That is a forecast. I acknowledge it could be higher and we will have to wait and see. Acknowledging the acute impact on people, on top of what we have done, we will have an opportunity to strategically and intelligently deal with this unprecedented impact on people in the forthcoming budget and to do it in a way that dovetails with policies that we have set in train and to try to reduce pressures on families, children and those most in need. We want to work with the social partners and others to identify those.

Finally, the latest CSO data on wages shows that the average weekly earnings in the first quarter of 2022 were up 10% from the same period two years ago.

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