As the House will be aware, the Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures that came out today indicate that the annual inflation rate is now at 6.9%. It is estimated it will rise to approximately 8% later in the year, before falling off towards the end of the year and into next year. That will come as no surprise to anyone in this House, nor will it come as any surprise to people who have been experiencing the price increases in their everyday lives. What the CSO is confirming today is what people have been experienc…

No matter what response I gave to Deputy Doherty just now, his answer was going to be what he said. It is his catch cry-----

-----and his standard line. No matter what anybody says to him, he is going to say they are out of touch and do not get it. Of course we get it. As I speak, €200 is coming off people's electricity bills because we understand the burden people face from increased energy costs, albeit ones caused by factors outside of our control. This is why we have had the biggest cut in excise duties on petrol and diesel ever-----

-----with 20 cent taken off petrol and 15 cent taken off diesel.

It is why we increased the fuel allowance. It is why we had a pension increase in the budget.

It is why we reduced income taxes for middle-income people, despite opposition from the Deputy's party. That we have acted in that way is evidence of the fact we get it. More than €1 billion is being used to reduce the cost of living for people, but we are not in a position to chase every increase and to fully compensate people for every increase.

We must be honest about this aspect.

Regarding engagement with the European Commission, there has been ongoing engagement on this matter by the Taoiseach and by the Minister for Finance.

The reality is that the proposal the Deputy is and has been making-----

-----is in breach of the European VAT directive and the European excise directive.

The reason Deputy Doherty cannot let me finish-----

The reason he will not let me speak and he continues to try to shout me down is that he does not want the Irish people to know-----

-----what a fake he is and that he keeps making proposals he knows cannot be implemented. That shows me he does not get it-----

-----and he will not listen to what I have to say because he does not want people to get him.

I agree with Deputy Bacik on a number of points but differ with her on a few others. It is absolutely correct to say that the cost of living impacts those on the lowest incomes the most. If we look at the data from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, however, the differential is not as wide as people may think. The most recent data produced by the CSO, and it is a little out of date, indicates that the rising cost of living impacts people in the lowest-income households, perhaps of the order 6% or 7%, while for mid…

I agree that the best way to examine the situation is using purchasing power parity. That is fair. Irish people are paying more on average than our peers in Europe or across the OECD. We do have a higher cost of living and that needs to be factored in. What I do not think we should do is use relativities, because they can distort the picture. A small number of people who are paid an awful lot of money in the multinationals can move the average. It is misleading to use relativities of that nature. I agree that a fai…

I thank the Deputy. I certainly agree with her initial statement that the IPCC report that came out the other day did not get the attention it deserved. It was very alarming, quite frankly, to read the summary, which I did. The Deputy is correct in her analysis that the war in Ukraine, the pandemic that still rages around the world, and the shocking rise in the cost of living meant it did not get the kind of attention it deserved. Sometimes when we are managing crises such as the war in Ukraine, the rising cost of …

I understand where the Deputy is coming from but I am just not sure what she is suggesting we do in practical terms. We have a really ambitious retrofit programme which is very much under way. The constraint there is not money. We will find it difficult to spend the money we have allocated towards retrofitting that comes from carbon taxes paid by businesses as well as households. Those businesses that produce the most carbon pay the most. However, the difficulty we will run into with retrofitting is having the skil…

I understand the Deputy's passion on climate action and I believe you are sincere on it. Not everyone in this House is but the Deputy is. I would love to know what she would do tomorrow to allow us to reduce our emissions suddenly and dramatically. You cannot replace everyone's car and all the heating systems in the country overnight, and you cannot just turn off all power stations. It will take a generation to make these changes happen and it will have to involve a combination of mitigation and-----

It is absolutely the case that the ESB is a very profitable State-owned company. It generates very significant profits each year. It may well be the case that it will generate larger profits this year than in previous years. It is important to put on the record of the House what it does with its profits. Its profits form part of its balance sheet. With them, it invests in the grid to make sure we can bring power to all parts of the country and empower job creation and economic development. It also invests in renewa…