Yesterday, we heard further evidence to of just how deep the cost-of-living crisis is biting households around the country. We heard it from the Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC, which told us how calls to their helplines are up and, in particular, we heard it from Barnardos, which described to us in such shocking terms how so many families cannot afford decent clothes or shoes for their children, who are forced to buy open-toed shoes, sandals or flip-flops in the hope that those will last longer, and are simply unable to afford basic food. Everywhere we go we hear it. I heard from a constituent of mine in Dublin Bay South, an assistant manager in a restaurant, who told me he has started to pick up additional shifts in another restaurant, as well as shifts with a private home care provider, just to be able to keep on top of his rent and provide for his family. Another constituent on a good salary cannot find a place to rent and has now been invited to make bids in a bidding auction. The landlord is asking potential tenants to indicate what they are willing to pay because there are plenty of people who will pay more if they do not.

Yesterday, my colleague, Senator Sherlock in the Dublin Central constituency, and I visited Brother Kevin and his team in the Capuchin Day Centre in the north inner city where we heard that they are seeing a shocking increase in the numbers of families coming in for the free dinner service. These are people who are working on low incomes and bike couriers working for companies like Deliveroo who are delivering food to others but are unable to afford food for themselves. That is the shocking reality.

I heard the Taoiseach’s response to the earlier question and he is right about Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine, which has had a horrific knock-on effect, not only for all of the civilians who, even yesterday, have been so tragically killed in Ukraine, but also for all of us across Europe as we see the cost-of-living crisis deepen. The point, however, is that notwithstanding who caused the crisis, the response here is up to the Government. We have control of the response in this country. We are a country that is wealthy by European standards. We saw massive State intervention to deal with Covid-19. That public sector investment saw us pivot swiftly and well to deliver the pandemic unemployment payment, the wage support schemes and all the other measures that were introduced. We need to see that level of intervention now to address the cost-of-living crisis, whatever the cause, and acknowledge the very significant international causative factors. The response is within our control.

The Labour Party has called for measures to be introduced urgently and swiftly to address the real concerns so many families and households face. In just six weeks’ time, the back-to-school crunch is coming when families will have to deal with buying school books. They are paying increased fuel costs and seeing the cost of basic food items such as bread and milk rising. There is a real fear around that. Even a small set of targeted measures introduced now, before the summer recess, would make a difference to the confidence of families and households that they will be able to face into the winter, in which we all know the cost-of-living crisis is only going to deepen and the real hardship I saw yesterday in the Capuchin centre is going to get even worse for families and individuals.

As I have said, the Government has responded. There seems to be a complete brushing aside of the fact that €2.5 billion has been allocated to cost-of-living measures. We are going to do more but we will do it in a comprehensive way, embracing pay. In the private sector, the latest Central Statistics Office, CSO, data on wages are showing that the average weekly earnings in the first quarter of 2022 were up 10% from the same period two years ago, the first quarter of 2020. The public service pay talks have adjourned but it is the wish of all to see if we can work out a resolution of that on the public service pay front. We also need to work out matters expenditure-wise Department by Department. That is the ideal way to approach it. We cannot create inflation in our response. This is different from the pandemic in respect of the nature of our response. This is not an issue where we can put €10 billion on the table straightaway over a period of time because that would obviously be very inflationary. We have to introduce targeted and temporary measures. That is what the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and others are saying. We will evaluate those reports to see what is the best way to target resources to reduce pressures on people. However, we will do this in a way that also facilitates better policy in terms of public transport, for example, and healthcare costs. We have brought healthcare costs down now. The drug payment scheme threshold is down to €80, which is beyond what was recommended in Sláintecare, and legislation is coming in today to abolish inpatient charges.

In a systemic way, can we reduce costs for people in their everyday lives, not just now but for the period right throughout the next winter and beyond into 2023?

This would dovetail with sensible policies. There will be a package at budget time that will impact in this calendar year on the pressures people face in respect of the cost of living. As the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has said, it has to be carefully balanced in terms of how the Government responds. It acknowledges the Government faces a very delicate balancing act in protecting the economy and poorer households from higher energy and food prices while avoiding adding to inflation through second-round effects. We want to avoid second-round effects. I have been saying this consistently from the get-go. That is what happened in the 1970s. We ended up with spiralling inflation that got worse and worse every year. We need to avoid this. We need to target our measures. We must make sure those on the lowest incomes are well protected. There are also workers who are in difficult positions after tax because of this crisis.

We have to have measures that can marry. If we want to do something significant on childcare, for example, we cannot do packages in isolation month to month. We need to deal with what expenditure will be allocated to the Department with responsibility for children next year, for example, to enable us to do something significant on childcare costs for people. These are the types of evidence-based approaches we require and in social dialogue with the partners to work that out.

We are very happy to work constructively with the Government to ensure targeted measures are introduced that tackle the real hardship being faced by those on the lowest of incomes. We are prepared to sit beyond and through the summer if that is what it takes to deal with the sort of targeted measures that are necessary, such as a summer social welfare bonus that could be introduced as a targeted measure to alleviate the real hardships faced by those on low incomes. We are very much prepared to do this. We very much accept that measures have been taken by the Government.

We also accept, of course, that the challenges with the cost-of-living crisis are different from those of Covid. What should be the same is the political will to deliver a strong State response and the type of creativity and ingenuity we saw in delivering the State's responses to Covid. This is the type of political will we need to see now in delivering measures that will alleviate hardship for families and households throughout the country. We support vastly increased investment in childcare. We have been calling for a Donogh O'Malley moment in childcare to ensure families will see a place guaranteed for each child in the country. This is essential. We know it will take some time. There are some targeted measures that could be introduced in the coming weeks that would help to alleviate the real hardship facing so many.

I appreciate the offer of constructive engagement with the Government in terms of coming forward with ideas or viewpoints to tackle this issue. It is something the Government would welcome and it would respond to any constructive ideas brought forward on this issue.

I come back to the fundamental point that we cannot chase inflation from month to month. The political will is there. The political will, as the Deputy correctly pointed out, was there during Covid-19 when up to €48 billion overall was spent to underpin the salaries of workers and enterprises to keep jobs. We still have a strong economy in terms of almost full employment. We want to protect this as best we can. The forecasts and predictions for the markets to which we export are that by the end of the year or into next year their growth will slow down significantly. This is bound to impact on us at some stage of the economic cycle. We want to protect the jobs we have created. We have come out of Covid very strongly economically because of the policies we have taken. The same political will exists with regard to tackling the cost-of-living pressures on people.

Caithfidh mé a rá gurbh é an príomhrud ná go mbeidh plean cuimsitheach, láidir á chur ar fáil ag an Rialtas ionas go mbeimid in ann an brú atá ar dhaoine faoi láthair a ísliú. Is é an t-am is fearr chun é sin a dhéanamh ná le linn na cáinaisnéise.