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

We acted comprehensively to help people over the last 12 months and we will continue to do so. We will intervene again to take people through this winter period. We have to help people right through to the end of March. We also have to protect jobs, just as we did during the Covid pandemic. Whatever the Deputy’s views and although he will never accept this, we took the economy through the pandemic and we protected jobs during that time. An unprecedented recession occurred in the first year of the Covid pandemic and, because of unprecedented and innovative responses from Government, enterprises and jobs were protected. We also protected incomes to such a degree that people were able to re-engage in the economy once the recovery started. Our targets were exceeded. We support measures to reduce the exorbitant revenues companies are gaining. I refer particularly to wind generation but also to fossil fuel generation. That will be dealt with. At the end of this month, in two weeks’ time, the European Union will make a decision on that, which I think is important. We will follow that and we support measures such as those that have been identified.

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