Every day, for understandable reasons, we hear Deputies from every party raise very serious concerns about the cost-of-living crisis and the true stories that are happening in our communities and constituencies. While we acknowledge the welcome intervention by the Government thus far, does the Minister plan, in the lead-up to the budget for next year, a substantive intervention regarding changing our income tax rates and bands? That could provide a reprieve and release for all in society, in particular the coping classes and squeezed middle who perhaps do not qualify for as much as others.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. We are now at a very early stage in putting together budget 2023. The programme for Government is very clear. We want to put in place an environment that ensures that as wages go up, those who are working so hard for those wages, in particular at a time when the cost of living is going up, also see higher wages feed through into an improvement in their take-home pay. That is a point on which the Government has agreed and that I am making in regard to the role of personal taxation decisions in this and other budgets.

I am very much aware of the role that indexation can play in helping at a time when the cost of living is increasing, but these are decisions that have not yet been made and will not be made for some time. Along with the Minister, Deputy McGrath, I will need to put this together in a way that continues to be affordable and safe for our country through safe national finances.