I join with the Taoiseach in moving this motion of confidence in the Government. This Government came together to form a stable majority with a clear mission to work hard to build a secure and prosperous future for the people of this country across five budgets. We are guided by that mission today as much as we were on the day we took office. Let me be direct about what is actually happening here. Sinn Féin decided to table a motion of no confidence before it even saw the details of the Government's package of supports. It is a package of supports which, factually, is far more comprehensive and strategically responsive than anything its members have proposed or are working on in the Northern Ireland Executive. Were Sinn Féin's motion to tear down this Government successful, the financial resolutions which we will pass in this House later this evening would fall away and the measures we agreed on behalf of the Irish people over the weekend to try to help hard-pressed people - the very same people Sinn Féin purports to represent - would not take effect. In other words, the motion of no confidence was just another one of its stunts.
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In the cold light of day, people know that.
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We are in a position to take this additional set of measures because of our budgetary strategy and the position of the public finances.
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It has enabled us to do many things which are helping people in the here and now and things which are in place for the long term. One million children are getting free school books. There are hot school meals in our primary schools.
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The fuel allowance worth-----
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-----over €1,000 per winter, with one in four households qualifying, including those on working family payments. VAT on gas and electricity has been cut to 9%.
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Three hundred thousand people can access free HRT.
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There are increased weekly payments for pensioners, carers and people with disabilities.
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The minimum wage is up 40% since 2020 to make sure work pays. Back to school allowance has been expanded to preschool children. There has been the largest ever increase in child support payments. More than 55,000 families with children in third level pay no contribution fee at all, and that number is growing. Auto-enrolment has been introduced, supporting 763,000 workers to build retirement security and, for the first time, public investment in a public model of childcare to build and overhaul our childcare systems.
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Ceann Comhairle, when the noise stops-----
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The energy price shock does also highlight the importance of reducing our dependence on imported fossil fuels and accelerating the climate transition. As long as we remain, in this country, dependent on fossil fuels from imports we risk our economic security and well-being. We are implementing the largest infrastructure programme in the history of the State and capital investment is projected to exceed €200 billion over the next decade. Thankfully, we are seeing clear progress now with almost half - 49% - of the country's electricity generated from renewables in March, 58,000 homes retrofitted last year and recent changes we have made to State schemes have seen a strong surge in applications, applications which are of course being funded by carbon tax, which some in this House seek to abolish. We are seeing record demand - over 29,000 applications already this year-----
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-----across SEAI schemes because the Government has made it more attractive and more financially possible than ever before for households to upgrade their homes. We are seeing applications for heat pumps surge by 95%, roof insulation by 81% and cavity wall insulation by 62%.
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We are accelerating delivery-----
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-----particularly for those most in need, while continuing to support tens of thousands of Irish homeowners with upgrades. We are also delivering at scale for the most vulnerable, with over 8,100 homes completed last year under the warmer homes scheme, which is the highest number ever. There is always more to do and challenges will always come but in a time of enormous and rapid change, the one constant has been a Government working to secure the well-being of the Irish people. We did it through the Covid-19 pandemic. We did it together through the war in Ukraine. We have done it together through the cost-of-living crisis. We have done it through the tariff induced uncertainty and we will respond and work together again while others seek to just tear it down.
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We have provided financial and other supports to households and businesses in a range of ways. We have deployed the State's balance sheet to maintain jobs, livelihoods and incomes. Each challenge the world has thrown at us we have emerged stronger from, despite it. The strength of the Irish economy is clearly evident in our labour market. Unemployment has remained below 5% for 16 consecutive quarters. This is a remarkable achievement given the global headwinds. That means that over 450,000 more people are now in employment that just before the pandemic. Around 57,000 of those jobs were added in the past 12 months alone: over 200 jobs every working day. The strength of our labour market mirrors developments across the wider economy. Business investment is up and consumer spending is resilient. These are signs of continued confidence in our economy among firms and households despite a more uncertain backdrop. As well as steering the economy through the challenges of recent years, our public finances are in good shape. The choices that matter most often get the least attention. In 2012, Ireland's public debt stood at 163% of national income.
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Today it stands at 62%. That reduction did not happen by accident. It happened because successive Governments, including this one, have run structural primary surpluses, have treated windfall corporate tax receipts as temporary rather than permanent revenue and have made deliberate decisions to sterilise those receipts into long-term saving funds. Our positive fiscal position-----
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-----has given us the ability to respond to the energy price shock and other countries and other executives, including in Northern Ireland, have not been in a position to respond similarly.
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We benefit from having acted-----
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-----to address the structural challenges that lay on the horizon.
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To enhance our economic resilience we have established two long-term saving funds, the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund.
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We now have the fiscal power to respond to external shocks. That was not always guaranteed. The external environment that we face is clouded in considerable uncertainty. Whatever the developments are in the Middle East over the coming days, the economic fallout of the conflict is likely to persist given the lasting a real damage to energy infrastructure. As a result, the supply-demand imbalance in energy markets is likely to continue for some time. Although we cannot, of course, know the scale of the imbalance, it will depend on an array of factors. Ireland, as a small open economy, will always feel these global shocks but we are better prepared than we have been in the past. We entered 2026 from a position of relative economic strength. We expect the Irish economy to continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace than previously envisaged. My Department will shortly publish its updated economic assessment. At moments like this, it has always been abundantly clear that we have an Opposition that has no shortage of spending plans but no strategy for growth.
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No thought is ever given to how it would fund its endless commitments.
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For a week, the airwaves were filled by those who shout the loudest and command the most attention online.
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In an age shaped by social media algorithms-----
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-----and 24-hour news cycles, it is easy to mistake that volume for consensus.
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People feel real pressures but no one in this republic gets to restrict the right of anyone else to move or go about their business.
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Beneath the noise, we have the cancer patients who could not get to their chemotherapy-----
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We had the expectant mothers who did not get to their check-ups-----
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We had the man who did not get to his dialysis appointment.
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We had the worker who lost a day’s pay because they could not get to their job.
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We had the parents stuck in traffic with screaming kids. We had the business owner who could not open because of a lack of stock.
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While we might not have heard from these people much, we know too-----
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-----that they are feeling the pressure.
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These are people who feel the pressure every day. They get up in the morning, they go to work and they try to get on with it.
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There are genuine, hard-working people concerned-----
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-----who joined the protests too because they are feeling the pinch, decent people who need our help and assistance. They will remain our focus. They will remain our focus every day, including in our resolutions tonight.
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That is what fairness looks like. It is what a strong economy can deliver: real outcomes, a good job and security for you and your family.
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This Government has acted. It has acted decisively and it is using its economic strength wisely. Together, we will get through this challenge-----
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-----but we will not get through it by seeking to sow division and tear our country apart.
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You were on holidays.
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