Among the negatives of the terrible war in Ukraine is the obvious and shocking impact of the death and destruction of young people in a war, both Ukrainians and the young Russians who are being sent to the front line by a despotic leader who seems to have no consideration for life or limb. There is also the terrible impact on civilians in Ukraine, with the displacement of 8 million people. Along with that, people analysing the war will say that it has had a negative impact on climate. The rush to reduce dependency on Russia for gas and oil means that more and more liquified petroleum gas, LPG, is coming into Europe and because of the inflationary pressures that have come from the war, we have had to deal with cost-of-living increases.

Deputy Bacik has rightly raised a conflict that potentially arises when we try to protect people from a financial and socioeconomic point of view by helping them with the cost of filling their car with petrol or diesel and by subsidising them in terms of home heating or reducing VAT on fuel. That creates tension. Given the extraordinary and exponential rise in wholesale and retail prices - although retail prices never followed the wholesale prices fully, they did go up significantly - over the last year we found ourselves, counter-intuitively, having to help people with their expenditure on fossil fuels. In ordinary times, that would obviously not be the direction we would want to take in terms of climate change more generally. That balance is there. Over the last six months, we have rightly had to look after people in terms of their capacity to live in the context of their basic expenditure.

We also took other initiatives, to be fair. We took a school transport initiative to try to encourage more people to get to school by bus. We tried to use the cost-of-living package - I was very keen on this - to embed measures that would be beneficial for the climate into the future. One of those was the school transport initiative. Another was the general reduction in travel costs, with the 20% reduction in public transport fares and the youth travel card discount of 50% to the end of 2023. I would like to see that extended beyond 2023, if I am honest. That is where we should go in respect of doing things that are beneficial to the climate.

We will continue to examine ways of making sure we do not regress in respect of the climate agenda as we try to protect households and low-income families in particular. On the fuel allowance, for example, I mentioned that families on that allowance are getting €2,000. If one looked at that exclusively through the prism of climate change, one would not be giving them that €2,000. That is just the reality of where we found ourselves in this time of exceptional cost-of-living increases.

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