Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Even if GNI* were used, we would still be below Slovakia. The Government would still be one of the worst in Europe. The Minister can dice and slice the statistics all he wants but there has been independent research done and whatever metric is used, we are still way behind what other countries have done. Many of those countries are borrowing to support families and businesses at this time.

We have put it to the Minister time and again that there are measures he could introduce. For years, we have been putting forward to him the idea of providing a refundable tax credit for renters. He has completely ignored that. What we need specifically in this budget is certainty. We need the Minister to do what is being done in other countries right across Europe. We need him to cut electricity prices back to where they were pre-crisis and to cap them at that level. Caps have been introduced in different forms in France, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and elsewhere.

Yet, the Minister for Finance is adamantly against the idea of bringing that price certainty for families and households this winter. In the mouth of this budget, will the Minister do a U-turn on this issue? Will he do the right thing and follow the trend in Europe of bringing price certainty to electricity prices for customers by reducing them to pre-crisis levels?

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