Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-28
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Ivana Bacik (LAB), Dublin Bay South

This time last year, households were already labouring under the pressure of grocery price inflation, the housing crisis and Trump's threatened tariffs. Since the outset of Trump's illegal war on Iran and in the Middle East, and with no end in sight to Russia's bombardment of Ukraine, things have got worse. The Taoiseach has rightly just described the situation we are in as a massive global energy shock, but in this shock, struggling households are left wondering when they will get some real reprieve from the Government. PAYE workers are not seeing the benefit of a multimillion euro sectoral support package.
In response to a question from my Labour colleague, Deputy Ged Nash, last week, the Tánaiste ruled out a mini-budget for our communities. Today, we are told that officials are scrambling to design one-off supports, such as retrofit grants and energy tweaks, with all signs pointing to a sort-of mini-budget. As the saying goes, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it might just be a duck. In this case, it is a very lame duck because what we are seeing is not a coherent plan. The Taoiseach talks about a strategic response but where is the strategy in the series of ad ho c measures he is formulating? They appear to be cobbled together in response to political pressure. To borrow another animal metaphor, the Government is playing whack-a-mole. It has no clear vision for how to support working families through this deepening cost-of-living and energy crisis. Would it not be more honest to call the response what it is, which is a mini-budget but released in segments? Call it what it is and let people then judge it on its merits.
Families are already stretched to breaking point. The Taoiseach knows that more than 320,000 households are in electricity arrears and 180,000 are behind on gas bills. These are the highest levels on record. Homeless figures are the highest on record. Grocery prices are rising week on week. Insurance, housing and education costs are all up. What has the Government done? It has withdrawn energy credits without putting any cushion in place for households, it has failed to index tax bands, as Labour had sought, and it has left PAYE workers footing the bill for sectoral pay-offs. With regard to VAT cuts, there is no evidence that they will achieve anything other than costing the Exchequer. Now, as inflation threatens to surge again, the Minister for Finance is kite flying.
People see through this. They see a Government that can find €750 million for sectoral supports while telling households to tighten their belts. They hear the Government's talk of tax breaks on wealth while they struggle to find the money to cover food and heating costs at the end of the month. That is why the Government's approach is so frustrating. If it is doing a mini-budget in all but name, why not bring forward a coherent package?
Why not take the options that we have proposed, such as a windfall tax on excess energy profits of big companies; a renewables revolution to end reliance on fossil fuels; targeted energy credits for working households; and indexation of tax bands? This would be systemic change, not just token measures. Why will the Taoiseach not just introduce a mini-budget and a coherent package that gives supports to struggling households?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-28