Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-30
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I dtús báire, admhaím go bhfuil deacrachtaí ann agus go bhfuil teaghlaigh faoi bhrú maidir leis an gcostas maireachtála, go háirithe de dheasca an chogaidh san Iaráin. Is léir go raibh drochthionchar ag an gcogadh sin ar phraghsanna. Tá sé sin soiléir. Tá an-chuid déanta ag an Rialtas, áfach, chun an brú sin a ísliú agus chun cabhair agus tacaíocht a thabhairt do dhaoine. Faoi dheireadh na bliana, beidh suas le €1 billiún níos mó curtha ar fáil againn do mhuintir na tíre i gcomparáid leis an méid a chuireamar ar fáil i gcomhthéacs na cáinaisnéise is déanaí i mí Dheireadh Fómhair seo caite.
Families have been under pressure in respect of the cost-of-living issue. The latter has been exacerbated by significant events in recent years, not least the exit from Covid, the supply chain inflationary crisis and the spiral that followed that, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the energy that followed that, the tariff situation relating to the United States and the war in the Middle East between the United States and Iran, which led to the largest ever supply shock in terms of fuel and to consequential increases in fuel prices.
In the first instance, budget 2026 provided a lot of significant supports. First, we had the increase in the core rates. We also had the significant increases in child support payments, which helped families that have children and that are on the lowest incomes. Record allocations were made in respect of those payments, including, for example to the fuel allowance. What was done meant that a lone-parent family with one child saw an increase of nearly 9% or €1,800 in payments from the Department as a result of our budgetary decisions. A two-adult household received increases in payments of up to €2,300 as a result of those decisions. Other measures we took include free hot school meals and free schoolbooks in primary schools. We took a lot of charges out of the health service to facilitate families in particular. These measures were all with a view to helping families deal with the crisis. We reduced VAT and have kept the VAT on electricity charges down to 9%. That will continue out to 2030.
Deputy McDonald said we did nothing. We introduced a special package of between €755 million and €771 million at that stage in order to alleviate the pressures on people and on the transport and food production sectors. We took 32 cent off the price of diesel, 27 cent off petrol and 7.4% off marked gas oil. We also deferred the carbon tax increases until 14 October.
These are substantial measures. We have now taken a decision to extend those and to reduce them on a graduated basis. The cost of that will be about €255 million, so we are looking now at an intervention, above and beyond what was in the budget, of close to €1 billion. That is not doing nothing. That is a significant intervention by any yardstick – probably one of the highest across the European Union. We want to introduce further measures in the forthcoming budget that will alleviate the pressures on families and on workers, particularly in terms of the tax burden on them. We also want to support pensioners, carers and those with disabilities. We want to use our resources in a focused and targeted way in the budget, which we will do.

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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/2026-06-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-30