Admhaím go bhfuil brú agus go mbeidh brú faoi leith ar dhaoine le morgáistí as ucht ardú rátaí. Níl aon amhras faoi sin. Is éard atá i gcroílár pholasaí an Rialtais ná an brú sin a ísliú go forleathan ó thaobh an chostais mhaireachtála. Ó thosaigh an bhliain seo caite, is léir go bhfuil an-chuid déanta ag an Rialtas chun an brú sin a laghdú agus a ísliú, ní hamháin i gcomhthéacs morgáistí ach i gcomhthéacs cáin a ísliú freisin. Maidir le caiteachas ar sheirbhísí poiblí agus ar chúrsaí oideachais agus sláinte, táimid i gcónaí ag ísliú an bhrú ar dhaoine. There is no doubt that pressure is increasing on families with mortgages but I always say that we must be mindful not to rush into the Sinn Féin knee-jerk response to issues that emerge from time to time. The most notorious knee-jerk proposal Sinn Féin came forward with involved the energy crisis. It is rare in economics that the economic proposals that parties put forward get tested so soon afterwards, but Sinn Féin's proposal about energy was tested about a month later in Great Britain and it was a disaster leading to the demise of a prime minister and her government.

The point is that we need to look at this more broadly than the Deputy is doing. Even his proposal is discriminatory against those on fixed-rate mortgages who have the same loans and the same repayments. The average repayment across fixed, tracker and variable-rate mortgages is roughly the same but Sinn Féin is proposing to exclude nearly 50% of mortgage holders from its proposal and thereby discriminate against them.

This points to the need to look at this more broadly in terms of the cost-of-living pressures that people undoubtedly face. The Government has intervened. The Deputy has already outlined some of our interventions, which were part of a more comprehensive package of measures totalling €12 billion to reduce pressures on people and families in respect of childcare, education costs, healthcare costs and transport costs. We have reduced the cost of public services across the board. That is evident even in the most recent CSO figures in respect of education where inflation is down by 6.2%. In health, inflation is 1.6%, which relative to healthcare is quite a significant change from the norm in terms of increases of 5% or 6% because health costs always go ahead of the norm. Food prices are up significantly because of the feed-through from the energy crisis. Increasing costs for farmers and food producers are feeding into grocery prices across the board. That is acknowledged. There is a 20% increase across the EU on average. It was about 13% in March in the Republic of Ireland.

There is far more merit in the kind of interventions we have been doing such as free schoolbooks for every pupil in primary school and special schools next September, a significant reduction in school transport costs and a waiver of exam fees. The hot school meals programme will be extended to all DEIS primary schools from September, benefiting 64,500 children. There will be a one-off €100 increase in the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance this summer, benefiting 273,000 children. Some 640,000 households in receipt of child benefit will receive a €100 lump sum per child in June. The fourth €200 electricity credit appeared in people's accounts last month.

The reductions in excise on petrol and diesel will continue until 1 June and about 1.3 million pensioners and so on are also benefiting in terms of additional social welfare payments. Our cost-of-living programme through the first half of this year has been designed by us in a comprehensive way. I think it is a better approach than just picking out things sector-by-sector every month, which is the knee-jerk response of the Opposition.

See this speech in context