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

I thank both Deputies for raising these issues and I want to take the opportunity to thank all our public servants who were involved in administering the exceptional payments issued between budget day and early December. Payments of the order of €1 billion outside of normal payments were made through our social protection system, including some universal payments such as child benefit and so on. I know from talking to people on the ground of the benefit that was derived from those particular payments. It was welcome and badly needed at that time. It is worth reiterating that many of the budget measures have only just kicked in respect of permanents changes to income tax and social welfare, widening eligibility to the fuel allowance, significant reductions in childcare costs, which I know have been so warmly welcomed by many families, and we are continuing to administer the system of electricity credits as well.

That said, I acknowledge that inflation hurts people. Inflation affects people’s living standards and it makes the cost of doing business much higher. While we believe inflation has peaked in Ireland and it is coming back, it is still at in excess of 8%, which is a level the like of which we have not seen for approximately 40 years. Therefore, we will have to keep all of this under review. Saying that the rate of inflation is falling is not the same as saying that prices are falling.

At the end of the day, what matters to people is how much they are paying at the forecourt for their fuel, how much they are paying at the supermarket till for their groceries and how much they are paying for other essential day-to-day expenses. The Government understands that. Most people acknowledge that we have done a lot of work to help and address the challenges they are facing. I am not committing to any new specific measures here tonight except to say that we will be keeping it under active review, in particular, monitoring inflation and the real-world costs that people are facing in their day-to-day lives.

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