Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

I appreciate the sincerity of the issues the Deputy has raised in respect of the challenges facing the country. Fundamentally, I make the point to the Deputy that since 2019 employment has grown in this country by 506,000 people. That is 506,000 people over five years. We have a strong and resilient economy and the most effective intervention in terms of poverty or living standards is work and jobs. I argue that the policies we have advocated here are advantageous to the enterprise economy and its continuation as compared to the policies the Deputy and those on the far left now allied with her have advocated.

I make the point that there has been significant inflation since Covid-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It peaked at close to 10% but since then the rates have considerably eased and living standards have improved significantly, with real wages and income increasing by between 3% and 3.5% this year alone. The nominal wage increase is about 5.5% and inflation is at 2%. I acknowledge, however, that prices are elevated. Food inflation is higher, at about 5%.

I appreciate the Deputy's focus on targeting because we do intend to target in the budget. We do intend to prioritise the issue of child poverty and those most in need and under considerable pressure but equally we have to sustainably work our way through this. We now have the third lowest rate of inflation among the 27 European Union countries. This is something that cannot be ignored as we drive forward in terms of wage increases and so on, and also in terms of targeting child support payments. There are mechanisms we can do, which we did in the past, to try to protect those who need protection most, on energy costs and on food pricing costs. The key is that we want to do this in a mainstream way. It is not economically sustainable as we come out of this high inflation period over the last two to three years after Covid that we would continue doing large stand-alone cost-of-living packages.

We have to mainstream provision in terms of the various mechanisms we have. For example, last year we eliminated the cost of school books in primary and second level schools. That is a permanent reduction in costs for families, parents and children. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul said that in the 2023-24 school year, it had a 20%-odd reduction in calls because of that measure alone. Hot school meals is another targeted mainstream provision that we have brought about. In other areas, we have done the same. That is the approach that I want to take. I welcome the Deputy's agreement that we need a targeted approach to these issues.

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