Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-04
============================================================

Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

Of course, we have intervened in the cost of living over the past three to four years. More than any other government in Europe, we intervened with our allocations, both in the once-off cost-of-living interventions that we made for over two years at huge cost, but then with more permanent measures such as the free books scheme, which is a substantial reduction in costs for parents and families of school-going children and the hot school meals in every school across the country, likewise helping families.
We acknowledge families are under pressure. Of course, they are. Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the post-Covid period and the weakening of supply chains, there has been an inflationary spiral. It has eased considerably in Ireland in inflationary terms, but the impact on the cost of living and the elevated prices remains for many households.
We significantly reduced all the medical expenditures that were there five or six years ago in terms of the drugs payment scheme threshold being reduced and getting rid of quite a lot of hospital charges that people had to fork out.
In terms of social protection, we had a €10 increase in the maximum rate of all State pensions from January of this year and likewise, for the jobseeker's allowance. There was the biggest increase ever in child support payments,. For any child over 12, the family gets €16 additional to €78 a week, and for children under 12, plus €8 to €58 a week. Of course, the fuel allowance was increased by €5 per week, but also the numbers of people benefiting went up significantly because we extended it to the working family payment to such an extent that 26% of households are now entitled to the fuel allowance and it is backdated to January. It is not a true story to say that the Government has done nothing or the Government has not intervened.
We have also extended the reduced VAT rate on energy bills, from 13% to 9%, and that will be extended to 2030. We have also taken very substantial measures in terms of retrofitting, which will ultimately reduce the costs for households who benefit from that over the long term, and immediately once it is done. Our interventions have been targeted in many areas and we will continue to support households and families.
Real wages have increased by 3% over the past 12 months. That is the reality and that is a fact. Members can dismiss that easily through rhetoric or something, but that is the reality. That said, there are still pressures on families. We will keep all of this under review in terms of how this unfolds over the next while.

---

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/2026-03-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:43+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-04