I welcome the proposals to reduce the cost of living for people. We have had a cost-of-living crisis since the end of Covid. That has escalated and it is now at crisis point. It is a serious situation and Government needs to understand that. Middle- and low-income households were never under so much pressure. Fuel, petrol, diesel, solid fuel, gas and costs are high and, as we learned today, electricity costs are the most expensive in the European Union. Rents, mortgages, house prices and waste charges are high. Health insurance does not just go up once a year anymore. It goes up two or three times, in double digits, and people are forced to pay it. Grocery prices, student fees and much more are all escalating. The combined total of all this is bringing huge pressure on ordinary, hard-working people, who cannot keep. People are in arrears with mortgages. I say all this sincerely. Rents are escalating. People just cannot pay their electricity bills. As of March, we have 320,000 people in arrears on their electricity bills. It is fair to say that that could be 400,000 now. Some 180,000 were in arrears on gas as well in March. It is safe to say that figure has escalated since. The top 10% of people in Ireland never had it so good. We must not forget that when people are paying higher prices, the money does not just disappear because the profit margins of many companies are up. The wealth of the big supermarket chains, the big hotel chains, and McDonalds continues to increase. We are looking at the transfer of wealth. Budget 2026 did not just leave behind ordinary PAYE workers and the self-employed; it actually left them worse off because of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's failure to increase tax thresholds and move the tax bands. PAYE workers and self-employed are now paying much more tax. The number of people in arrears on electricity has reached crisis point. People in rented accommodation are really struggling because rents are out of control. We know why that is. That must be addressed. We had one of the cheapest electricity systems in western Europe when it was all in public ownership, but the cost has increased since the State started to privatise it. Other reasons have been given and I accept there are other factors, but one is that because it is privatised, profit-making actions are taken by the companies generating electricity. We need to get into our heads that this has happened. Mortgages are at an all-time high because house prices are at an all-time high. I am not asking the Government to throw money around the place but we should have targeted measures. I do not agree with untargeted measures. Targeted measures need to be the name of the game. We need to look at those households that have an income under €75,000 a year. The Government should bring in a windfall tax on the large energy companies. There are good examples across Europe of where that is happening. We need to reverse the VAT cuts for the big hotel chains and the big food distribution companies such as McDonalds. We need targeted energy credits for households with income under €75,000. We urgently need a cost-of-living payment for people who are disabled because they are €1,400 worse off this year than last year as a result of the way the budget measures were done. We need to restore back-to-school funding. We need to halt the planned increase in student fees. The Government needs to adjust the tax bands. Ordinary workers, particularly workers on less than €75,000, whether self-employed or on PAYE, were left behind. We need to increase the relief on rent paid and on mortgage interest charges. I ask the Government to examine the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to see what it is about. In my time here, it has shown itself to be totally useless, and I do not say that lightly. One of the other proposals relates to solar grants. Solar energy is a quick win and easy to fit. I know it cannot be done in a day or a week but, in the medium term, we should move fairly quickly to try to do that and scale up the grants for solar, to get panels onto houses and speed up the warmer homes scheme. The waiting list is 23 to 24 months. I ask that those practical measures be taken.

Sentiment score: 0.07