Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister talks about modelling the cost but the reality is people here face a massive increase in repayments. For people struggling with gas, electricity, food, petrol and diesel prices over the last six months, to be told they have to pay an extra €2,000 in mortgage repayments on a typical family home with an outstanding balance of €200,000 is a huge wallop. They are looking to the Government to support them.

There are ways in which it can be done. We are working with the Central Bank and the office of parliamentary costings to cost proposals. For example, we can look at the cost of the increased interest rate. The Minister is talking about the old measure brought in before the financial crash, which looked at all interest paid. What is needed is a targeted, tailored measure that deals with the shock households have faced.

The Minister can dismiss as this suggestion, as his Government has done, but he has form in this regard. He dismissed a renter's tax credit; now he is forced to introduced it. He dismissed an eviction ban; yet he has been forced to introduce it. I ask him to look at this in the interests not of who is bringing it forward but of those individuals impacted by these increases.

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