Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-04-22 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central As a result of the budget last year, public expenditure will rise by 8.6%. That is not failing anybody. That is a very high increase in investment in public services that all workers benefit from - families and people generally. It is investment in education, health, childcare and right across the board but most critically in housing. Housing remains the number one issue facing our country. We put unprecedented investment into housing so that young working people could benefit from significant supports, from the help to buy scheme, the first home scheme and the rental tax credit. We introduced a significant range of supports to increase housing supply so that young people could be in a position to buy and rent houses they could afford. We will continue to relentlessly pursue the housing question. In the budget we also, critically, put huge investment into infrastructure. We need new roads, a metro and public transport. All of that helps workers. That is the strategic decision we took to make sure there would be unprecedented investment in water, the electricity grid for electricity and energy, and in terms of road infrastructure and public transport. Deputy McDonald ignores all of that because she does not adopt a strategic approach to jobs or to the economy. She should always remember that the most important thing in life is that we have an economy that can provide jobs to people. Last year 57,000 extra jobs were created in the economy, which is for working people. They are jobs that will enable them to navigate life, notwithstanding the pressures. We did not forecast the war in the Middle East. I listened to Deputy McDonald yesterday and today and she ignored the fact there is a war in the Middle East, which is directly impacting fuel prices. That has led to the increase in fuel and has also impacted on other issues. It will filter into other parts of the economy, which is impacting on workers and on families more generally. That is why we announced a €750 million package, which will help workers, farmers and contractors. Food production is very important. The general excise duties will help also. We also increased the State pensions by €10 in the budget. We increased child support payments. Deputy McDonald ignores that. It was the biggest increase ever. The families of children aged 12 plus get €16 extra, bringing it to €78 per week, while there is an extra €8 for the families of children under 12, bringing it to €58 per week. That was to deal with child poverty because we did prioritise child poverty, along with housing and infrastructure. We also prioritised disability. An extra €500 million was allocated to disability services. We increased the domiciliary care allowance by an extra €20. We made choices to support and target our resources at those most in need, and those sectors that needed significant investment. We increased the fuel allowance by €5 per week. We extended it by a month and we brought 50,000 working families into the fuel allowance for the first time ever, which will help them in some shape or form, and alleviate pressure on them. In terms of energy, we also extended the reduction in VAT. We had reduced VAT to 9% on gas and electricity. We have now extended that out to December 2030. We have record funding for home energy upgrades, which benefits many workers. A total of €558 million was allocated in the budget. Deputy McDonald mentioned education, schooling and so on. We now have free GP care for children under the age of eight. Every individual aged 70 and over has automatic eligibility to a GP visit card. --- 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/2026-04-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:51+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-22