Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It may well be that the Deputy is right. It is often the case that we experience things on the ground and hear about them anecdotally, yet it is weeks or months before the official statistics prove what we know already. That is what we are seeing now with the statistics on inflation. According to the Central Statistics Office, CSO, prices are rising at 9.6% a year. I think everyone knew that weeks and months ago. In fact, it feels to me that they are actually rising faster than that. I expect that we will see the rate of inflation rise above 10% before it falls back, and it will fall back.

On businesses, I take the Deputy's point in relation to working capital. We have helped over 10,000 businesses already through loan guarantee schemes. However, at the moment, the only businesses that can qualify for them are those that can demonstrate that they have been adversely affected by Brexit or Covid. We have applied to the European Commission for permission to extend those working capital loan schemes to businesses that can demonstrate that they have been adversely affected by the crisis in Ukraine, i.e. energy prices. That is the first step. We made a submission to the Commission to do that. We will have to legislate to do that. It is one of the things that I definitely intend to do. I am also looking at other initiatives that might help, particularly around the longer term response.

See this speech in context