I thank my colleague Deputy Nash for bringing forward this Private Members' motion on the cost-of-living crisis. I listened carefully to the Minister of State's words. He talked about acknowledging the fear and frustration that were evident around the country in recent weeks and how this Government is responding. The Government is responding all right to those who blockaded our streets. While we had genuine sympathy for many of those people, we, the Labour Party, are standing for the people who could not get to work, who had to spend hours getting to their health appointments and for whom this Government has delivered nothing. That is why we are calling for a mini-budget. Most of us have weekly or monthly clinics and we knock on doors on a regular basis. However, because we have a by-election in Dublin Central at the moment, I am knocking on doors on a daily basis. I have to tell the Minister of State that there is a serious level of bitterness and resentment towards this Government. That bitterness is because people felt bought before the general election when, for three winters, there were energy tax credits worth €2.77 billion and then when household arrears topped €500,000 last winter, there was no support. I am talking to women in flat complexes who are putting in €50 every two days into prepaid meters. They cannot afford to continue. There is bitterness among workers on average incomes - the mechanics, office administrators, bus drivers and social care workers. These workers on average incomes of €52,000 are now somehow deemed to be high earners in our income tax system because they are paying the higher rate of tax. We have a tax system that is seriously out of kilter when the marginal rate of 52% kicks in for those on just above average earnings. We need to see changes to that to make sure average workers pay the standard rate of tax. Among so many other working people, many of whom vote for the Minister of State's party and other Government parties, there is a real sense of bitterness and resentment about what the Government is doing with their hard-earned taxes. They are being told to weather this storm until October, to sit it out, yet they see the prospect in July of a VAT cut for the hospitality sector, with no guarantee that it will save jobs or businesses. We hear all these excuses from Government about the war, the energy markets and whatever else. There is some sort of post-colonial feigned helplessness in the way this Government responds. There is always someone else to blame. That has to change and the Government has to control the controllable by using the might of our public finances to permanently reduce the cost of living and cut people's bills by retrofitting homes while also reducing emissions. It must use the might of the public finances to keep people healthy and out of hospital by actually purchasing available vaccines, such as the shingles vaccine and the enhanced flu vaccine, rather than throwing its hands up in the air, saying these vaccines are too expensive. We had the extraordinary situation in March whereby the Government concluded a multibillion euro three-year deal with the pharmaceutical companies in this country for the purchase of drugs for people who are sick and there is not a single mention of vaccines. The prosperity we see in our public finances will not be there forever and I very much worry about when those days are going to change. The last major economic expansion in our country was 21 years ago. We are now 14 years into our current run. It is vital that we make the most of what we have. We have to make sure that with the money we have, clean, cheap energy is for the many, not just the few; that the system of grants is overhauled so that when households look at solar grants they do not see the actual cost quadruple; and that we achieve scale and put in place incentives to have a number of properties retrofitted together in order that we get to the point that 500,000 houses are retrofitted by 2030. We need ambition from this Government. We are not seeing that. We have to use the resources we currently have and that may not be there forever to ensure we resolve the cost-of-living crisis.

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