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

Prior to that, during Covid, we took extraordinary measures to protect workers and the economy, which resulted in the fastest economic growth of any European member state since Covid. That gives us the resources to enable us to intervene again in a significant way on Tuesday two weeks with the budget and the cost-of-living package we will announce. If we had taken Deputy Boyd Barrett's measure and spent billions nationalising energy we would have very little left to allocate to anything right now. We have a significant surplus, some of which we will use to alleviate the pressures on households and protect jobs.

We will intervene because we realise people are under extraordinary pressures and are worried and concerned by the extraordinary price increases. We are in a dangerous moment globally, with a major war on the continent of Europe that has created the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since Second World War with millions of people displaced. There are huge problems with energy and migration because of that, and now with food in other parts of the world. That is the scale of what we are dealing with but we will intervene.

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