Cuirim fáilte roimh na Little Blue Heroes. We are in very safe hands with outstanding people like them. I thank them for being here. Households continue to be hammered left, right and centre by soaring prices with no let-up. With extortionate rent, big electricity and gas bills, high fuel prices, unaffordable childcare and runaway insurance premiums, prices are out of control. Workers and families are squeezed and forced to live week to week. They ask themselves when all of this will stop because they cannot keep up. Nowhere is all of this clearer than when it comes to the weekly shop. A report published today by PwC found that 70% of Irish customers are extremely worried about the cost of food. This is just the latest in a series of reports confirming what people already know, which is that food prices are through the roof. Let us take a look at some of the basics. According to the CSO, in the past year alone, a pound of butter has gone up €1, a kilo of Irish cheddar cheese has gone up 57 cent and 2 l of milk has gone up 27 cent. Writing in The Irish Times last week, Conor Pope found that, according to figures provided to "Pricewatch", a kilo of chicken that cost €4.99 in 2022 now costs €11. That is just crazy. Many households are paying €3,000 a year more in the supermarket than they were in 2021. It is little wonder that families are finding it harder and harder to put food on the table and, in some cases, are cutting back on basics. People now feel serious pressure and anxiety as they push their trolleys to the checkout. In May 2023, the Taoiseach's colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Neale Richmond, told the public that he had this situation under control. He puffed out his chest, called in the big supermarket chains and declared that they had just six weeks to get prices down. That was 110 weeks ago. Clearly the Minister of State failed to exert any real pressure on those retailers because he was duly and unceremoniously ignored and things have only gotten worse for customers at the checkouts. That was it. That single limp intervention was the entirety of the Government's effort to tackle runaway food prices. The Government could not get the job done so it just walked away and left households to feel the pain. It seems the Government's latest plan is to do absolutely nothing, to stick its head in the sand and allow people to be ripped off week in and week out. So out of touch is the Taoiseach's Government that it digs in and refuses to bring forward supports to help hard-pressed households deal with these out-of-control prices. Its message to workers and families under enormous pressure is that they are on their own. Tá praghsanna bia tar éis ardú go hard na spéire. Tá imní ar theaghlaigh gach seachtain nuair a théann siad chun siopadóireachta. Caithfidh an Rialtas a ghníomhú chun daoine a chosaint ó na costais ollmhóra seo. Was it all just bull and bluster when the Government called in the big supermarket chains two years ago? Will the Taoiseach do anything at all to tackle soaring food prices? How on earth is it that he refuses to consider any cost-of-living supports when people are under such pressure just to make ends meet?
Sentiment score: -0.05
Some 70% of people are concerned about food prices. That is what I am raising with the Taoiseach. I gave him some examples earlier; let me give him some more CSO data. Over five years, the price of sugar has gone up by 54%; fillets of cod, 55%; pork sausages, 21%; lamb, 48%; and spaghetti, 46%. This is the reality people face every week when they go to the supermarket to do their shop. People tell us the kind of pressure that is putting on them and they rightly expect that the Government will intervene. I ask quite simply, in respect of people's grocery bills, their weekly shop, what does the Government propose to do? Was it just bluster or was it just performative two years ago when the Minister of State summoned in the big supermarket chains and told them what was what? Nothing changed. People are still to the pin of their collar. I would like the Taoiseach to be clear. What does he propose to do now in respect of soaring costs and prices that are causing real pressure for families across the country?
Sentiment score: 0.08
Does the Taoiseach do a weekly shop?
Sentiment score: 0.00
Clearly he does not.
Sentiment score: 0.40
Does the Taoiseach do his weekly shop? No, he does not.
Sentiment score: -0.15
Yes, you did.
Sentiment score: 0.40
HRT is not a grocery.
Sentiment score: 0.00
Insurance has gone up.
Sentiment score: 0.00
Does the Taoiseach keep track of even his own bills?
Sentiment score: 0.00