Cost of Living Issues Dail Éireann — 2025-12-18 ============================================================ Barry Ward (FG), Dún Laoghaire I agree about having a standard measure that is predictable from year to year, particularly in relation to the tax brackets. However, tax credits is one area in respect of which we could potentially address issues relating to working families. These are the families caught between qualifying for certain grants and not earning enough to be okay on their own. Tax credits, reform of tax credits or giving them advantages in terms of what tax they pay is one area. Means tests are not keeping up with inflation, and that affects families in the middle ground. They might earn more money, fall outside something that is means tested but not have more purchasing power on foot of inflation. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-18/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-18