Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome the opportunity provided by Sinn Féin to discuss the rise in the cost of living and I thank the party for that. It was put to me in stark terms last night by the outgoing cathaoirleach of Clare County Council that if a single person living alone on the old age pension buys nothing else for three weeks, he or she can buy a half a tank of fuel. That is where we are and this is not sustainable now or into the future.

We constantly hear from the Government that we have very close to full employment and that is a measure of its economic success. Nevertheless, many people working full time in Ireland cannot make ends meet at the end of the week. Sometimes even families with two people working cannot make ends meet if they have children. That is not sustainable because of the rising cost of living.

It would be attractive to think a mini-budget or emergency budget on its own would solve this. I accept that throwing money at the problem through social welfare payments alone is not going to solve this. It will do it for certain cohorts and particularly for people with no other source of income, it would have to be part of the solution. There would certainly have to be large tax credits along the lines of those in the UK for childcare and that must be part of the solution. It will have to be part of the solution very quickly.

We must try to stop the cost of living rising further. This is difficult because for decades we have heard that we are the most globalised economy in the world. We have very few tools at our disposal and it is a very difficult time but we must consider what has been successful up to now. In Ireland, inflation is now running at increasingly unsustainable levels, driven by energy and housing costs. France managed to stem inflation a little by capping the cost of energy. That was facilitated by the fact France did not follow the folly of Germany in closing its nuclear power stations before it had an alternative fuel supply. We do not have one either, although, like France, we have an energy sector that is largely State-owned. The Minister is going to have to look at capping energy costs in Ireland to put a cap on the rising cost of living. We must also look at ways in which rising interest rate costs can be prevented from being passed to tenants who are renting. That is even without even discussing food inflation, which to date has not been a major contributor in Ireland, unlike in other European countries.

I have repeatedly asked the Government to put measures in place to try to combat or lower input costs. If that is not done, they must be passed on by farmers, unless they go broke themselves. If that happens, we will have food shortages. Those input costs must be passed on. To date, no measures to combat those have been put in place. If we do not have an emergency budget, I ask the Government to put plans in place now to try to stall the inevitable increase in the cost of fuel, energy, housing and food next year. Unless measures are put in place now to stop that, it will be inadequate to throw money at the problem next October and it will not help people.

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