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

This does not apply just to education but to anybody living and working in Dublin or in the major cities in respect of any profession. One cannot single out just one profession. There is no doubt but there are challenges and that people will opt for a lower rent situation that would meet their personal requirements if they can get it. Until we get supply to a really significant level, we will continue to be in difficulty here. We will look at other measures, such as through tax measures, to alleviate the pressures people are under. Pay in the private sector has gone up 10% over the past two years. There is the public service pay deal the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform negotiated last year, Building Momentum. A further negotiation has commenced and adjourned. It is the Government's desire that we would have a pay deal with the public service and then, in the context of the budget, that we would have proposals on tax and social protection in parallel with a pay agreement. Then, overall, we can help to alleviate the pressures on teachers and others working in the public service and in the private sector, also through tax measures. Parallel with that, we would have a cost-of-living package that would focus on families and children and reduce the burden on them. What the Government envisages providing now is an overall cost-of-living package that will be once-off and will be applied in this calendar year, before the end of the year, in order that people would have funding from that package and that the budget measures themselves would enable us to come through the winter and put in place more medium-term policies on childcare, spending on education and in all the various Departments.

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