Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Many of the measures I mentioned are not one-off measures. The reduction in the price of childcare is a permanent measure and we anticipate doing more in the forthcoming budget. The same applies to the reduction in the cost of public transport. I could go on. We have taken 20 or 30 measures and many of them are permanent rather than one-off.

It is a tired narrative to say we are not taking action. Take what we have done on energy. We have imposed a special dividend on the ESB that we can now use to help homes and businesses with their energy costs. We are also bringing in a windfall tax, which, again, will raise hundreds of millions of euro that we can use to help households and businesses with their energy costs. We have also reduced VAT and excise on energy in a budget that the Social Democrats opposed. Let us not forget that. It voted against a budget in which we reduced VAT and excise on electricity, gas, petrol and diesel. That is a fact.

The Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, will meet retailers today and the message from him will be very clear. When their input costs went up they increased prices for consumers and as their input costs come down, we expect to see prices for consumers come down as well. He will raise the issue of profit margins with them in that meeting.

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