Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-09-22 ============================================================ Ivana Bacik (LAB), Dublin Bay South The last time public sector unions went on strike was when Fianna Fáil was in government. We are seeing the neglect and abandonment of the public sector PAYE workers again with Fianna Fáil now in government. The Labour Party has put forward clear, costed proposals. We are the only party that did not support the narrowing of the tax base and stood against that reckless VAT cut for hospitality last year. We put forward very clear proposals for helping struggling households this summer just gone in our May mini-budget proposals which the Minister voted against. We have clearly put forward the need for targeted energy credits as a way of helping households who are now in arrears on energy bills but we also recognise, as the Minister does not seem to be able to do, that we need a more sustainable, long-term way of addressing spiralling energy bills and spiralling housing and childcare and grocery costs too. That is where our costed alternative budget that we will be launching next week will be putting forward constructive measures that are taking climate seriously----- --- 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/2026-09-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-22