Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

I want to address just some of these broken promises. Broken promise number one is the cost of living. During the election, the Government was clear over and again that tackling soaring prices and the runaway cost of living was its biggest priority. As a man once said about empty promises, is that not what you tend to do during an election? That is certainly true of you lads. The Government has delivered a budget worth billions of euro without a cost-of-living package to help workers and families. That just beggars belief. You close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears and convince yourselves that households are doing fine. With a surplus of over €10 billion, the Government cannot help workers and families, according to it. Well, it could help.

We proposed a substantial cost-of-living package to make life affordable for working families. The Government could have done that but it chose not to. It does not suit Fine Gael's priorities, so it got pushed to the side so it could look after the golden circles, and Micheál went along with that. Let us be straight about it. In a time of massive surpluses, abandoning workers and families like this is the choice the Government has made. Not only is it not providing help, it has actually decided with its eyes wide open to make things worse, even harder. What does that say to people who feel there is no end in sight to the rip-off?

From this week, households will again be hit with double-digit hikes in electricity prices and the Government has the nerve to withdraw energy credits. It gives free rein to the energy companies to hike up their prices as hundreds of thousands of households already cannot afford their bills, and it cancels the one modest protection they had. That is the Government all over. Let the big boys make their bumper, record profits on the backs of hardworking people. No skin off the Government's nose. Sinn Féin called on the Government not to make this terrible decision. We showed it how it could provide a €450 energy credit to help people through the winter but the Government ignored that.

It is the same story when it comes to food prices. In May 2023, Fine Gael Minister of State Neale Richmond puffed out his chest and told the top brass in the big supermarket chains that they had six weeks to get prices down. Do the Taoiseach and Tánaiste remember that? That was 126 weeks ago and grocery prices have gone through the roof. The supermarkets laugh all the way to the bank while working parents skip meals to ensure that their children have enough to eat. It is shameful. It underscores why people needed a cost-of-living package to get household costs down.

The Government says it recognises the pressure that people are under, but its actions say otherwise. It certainly does not get how hard it is to keep a car on the road because despite years of motorists being hit by fuel price increases, the first result of the Government's budget is that petrol and diesel prices are hiked up, with the full and enthusiastic support of the Healy-Raes of the Kingdom of Kerry.

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