National Economic and Social Council
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-17
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

-----which is quite substantial and effective.
The bottom line anyway is that we are targeting the resources at those who need it most. I accept there is pressure on energy. Of that, there is not doubt, but to keep doing €2 billion to €3 billion in one-off payments is not sustainable. One third of our revenue is corporate tax. That may not last forever. We need to embed measures into the permanent budget, which is what we did beginning in the budget. There is huge investment in infrastructure and investment in the retrofitting programme - the biggest budget ever. We are supporting fuel poverty and investing in other areas as well to try to reduce the pressure on people, and in terms of other income disregards for microgeneration, etc.
On Deputy Paul Murphy's questions, again, there were great sound bites that the Government is sort of swallowed up by big tech and we are doing this for big tech. Whether he likes it or not, the digital economy will require data centres into the future. I do not know how we are going to do it otherwise. Equally, when the Deputy casually talks about big tech, they employ. That is not why we are doing, by the way. Our fundamental agenda is always to support workers and to support good quality jobs in this country. The Deputy dismisses it all of the time. He really could not care less about how many thousands of people are working in technology companies in this country.
In my own city of Cork, Apple employs 6,000 people. Is the Deputy dismissing them as big tech?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:38+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-17