"Isolated often at home, [my] child sees me constantly stressed and budgeting/worrying about bills and arrears and going without [the] basics." Those are the words of one parent from the Barnardos cost of living survey published this week. One in five families is cutting back on food due to the cost of living. Nearly half have skipped meals or reduced portions so their children would have enough to eat - in a rich country. Thirty per cent felt that at some point, they did not have enough food to feed their children. Some parents said, "Food for myself, I'm having to go without" and that the "Amount of food we buy had been significantly cut". I could go on.

Today, we have more bad news for families up and down the country. The ESRI has warned that food prices will rise even higher because of second-round effects from the Iran war. Families already struggling will be hit again with higher energy bills and higher grocery costs in the autumn and winter. As the Tánaiste will know, electricity bills are rapidly rising, with an 8% hike from Electric Ireland in July, which is an extra €140 a year on average family bills. Flogas plans to increase its prices by 10% and we have already seen PrepayPower up its prices in May. The Government has nothing to offer on energy costs, not since it bought its way in the last election.

I could ask the Tánaiste what the Government has done to ensure lower food, energy and grocery prices, but the truth is it is a big fat nothing. There has been lots of talk about competition and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, but nothing of substance has been done. Looking at last year's budget, we can recall what the Government did not do. There was no indexation of income taxes, no energy credits, no increase in children's allowance and there was a cut to one-off cost-of-living payments. PAYE workers and hard-working families were mogged - mogged by burger barons and the highly profitable hospitality sector.

The Tánaiste's Government made the choice to give them a VAT cut, and we know where the Tánaiste's focus has been for much of the past week. It has been on giving the red carpet treatment to influencers who came to the Department to talk to him about his wealth account plans. This contrasts with the carpeting received by PAYE workers in last year's budget. Let us not forget the endless reports and meandering to the media by various Ministers on inheritance tax cuts, when all the while parents are focused on feeding their children and making sure they do not go hungry.

Temperatures are rising, but so are prices. What will the Tánaiste do practically to help lower food prices? Next week, the lower VAT rate kicks in and tourists will be arriving from all around the world to eat in our restaurants, which is a good thing. We will have EU diplomats from across member states descending on Dublin and having their takeaway coffees. Families who can afford to might be going out to get a burger this summer, if the good weather continues. Will they be paying lower prices? Will the Tánaiste directly call on the hospitality sector to commit to passing on the VAT cuts he is about to introduce, through lower prices for customers across the country?

Deputy Nash really does not like burgers, but we will get to that in a second.

This Government has taken a number of actions in endeavouring to assist people. We should remind ourselves that in the country we live in, there are over 2.8 million people who got up and went to work this morning - the highest number ever. Figures from the CSO show the average weekly wage is now over €1,000. Yes, we are living in a time of huge global uncertainty but, thank God, we have resources as a country to intervene. The Deputy asked what the Government did to assist people with fuel and the likes. We delivered the largest or second largest package in the entire European Union for direct assistance. This did not just help specific sectors, although it helped them too. It helped hauliers, farmers, farm contractors and people working in road transport. It helped everyone going to work who needs to put petrol or diesel in their car but it also, and I have made this point before, reduced inflation by 0.6% per month on what it would have been. The cost of food would have been 0.6% higher, from an inflationary point of view, in Dunnes, Tesco, SuperValu and shops in Louth, were it not for the package the Government put in place. That cannot be overlooked. That is not my view; it is the view of the chief economist and the economic analysis of the package we put in place.

We increased the fuel allowance and, next week, something else is happening that is not just VAT being reduced. The carer's allowance is being expanded. There will be thousands of carers receiving the reduced rate of the carer's allowance who might now qualify for the larger rate, and there will be some who do not currently get carer's allowance who will qualify for the first time ever. That is happening next week.

As the Deputy knows, we also introduced the largest ever increases in child support payments, with over 330,000 children benefiting from these increases. The national minimum wage has increased since 2020 by 40%, from €10.10 per day to today's rate of €14.15. We have also reduced people's VAT to 9% on gas and electricity bills. We have reduced college fees and brought in free hot school meals, free schoolbooks, free GP care for under-eights, and we have extended the back-to-school footwear and clothing allowance to preschool for the first time ever. This Government has taken several actions to help people.

However, the decision to reduce VAT in the hospitality sector is a very important one, and do not forget the hairdressers-----

I did not.

-----with €48 million being the cost for hairdressers - the beard trimming. This will benefit. There are over 150,000 people working in the hospitality sector and, I will be very honest, this is not about reducing the cost of a cup of coffee. I am not going to lie to anybody here; it is not about that at all. This is about supporting employment. It is about saying to the coffee shop owner, restaurant owner and pub that might do a lunch in rural Ireland that we are helping them by reducing their tax bill because they are helping us in providing employment.

The Deputy mentioned the old beef barons or burger barons or whatever you call them. CSO data shows that 99% of those working in food catering and accommodation are SMEs, and half of those are microenterprises that have less than ten employees. This is an initiative that will disproportionately benefit rural and regional Ireland, small businesses and microenterprises. It is the right decision. I look forward to standing with coffee shop owners, café owners, hairdressers and restaurateurs to say we took this decision to support jobs.

Hear, hear.

I thank the Tánaiste for going through some of his greatest hits in recent years, but the question is what will be done for working people this year? The Tánaiste has acknowledged that as a result of the untargeted VAT cut for the hospitality sector, PAYE workers had to go without indexation last year, which means more of the money they earn this year - the small increase they get from their pay increase - will by and large go to the taxman. The Tánaiste said earlier in the House that this was wrong and the Government has to make up for that. However, with all the promises made over the past few weeks by various Ministers going through the media rounds, the tax package for this year seems to be already swallowed up.

The Tánaiste and I have a difference in opinion on how we can best support the small cafés and restaurants around the country that we need to support. This expensive blunt instrument is not the way to do it. The way to do it is to introduce targeted energy supports and reform the outdated commercial rate system to address some of the structural cost issues in our SMEs across this country. A blunt instrument like this that is costly and will disproportionately benefit franchises and big chains is not the way to do it.

I said to the Deputy earlier, and I am happy to say it again, that I do not doubt his bona fides or that of his party in wanting to support small businesses. I do not doubt that at all. We just have a different policy approach to this. I also made this point, and I will make it again, that we had an election. In that election, I stood in coffee shops, restaurants, pubs that served food and hotels, and I said to people that if they voted my party back into Government, and the Fianna Fáil party did the equivalent, we would reduce their VAT rate. It was a promise we made to people right across this country and is a promise we are delivering on - promise made, promise kept, promise delivered. It is a permanent reduction in costs and taxes on employment that specifically impacts regional and rural Ireland, small businesses and microenterprises.

The Deputy knows well what we are thinking of doing in the next budget. We will have the summer economic statement next month, which will outline the amount we will have for additional spending and will allocate the amount we will have for a tax package. There will also be a personal income tax package. I believe we need to look at the budget in the round. Tax can do some things, which it should. There are too many people paying the higher rate of tax at too low an entry point, but there are other things we can do on the spending side to structurally reduce costs families face, including workers. The Deputy referenced childcare, which would be an obvious area too. We will be going through the budget and looking at that. The summer economic statement will be the next chance we will have to take stock next month.