Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government has brought forward a package worth €1.2 billion of specific special payments that will be made between now and early December. That will be of real help to people. We stood by businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic. We have seen a strong recovery in the Irish economy. We are now setting a scheme and are focused on getting that up and running. Of course, we will keep it under review and if the Government needs to do more next year, at least we have the resources to do so because we will have a surplus next year. We have put funding away so that we have the capacity to respond and to provide extra help to people if we need to-----

See this speech in context