I will be working throughout July. I hope people get a bit of sunshine in July but the way things are going it is a fairly rare occurrence these days. The issue the Deputy raised is serious. The one issue he studiously avoided mentioning, bar indirectly when quoting the Governor of the Central Bank, was the war in the Middle East. He ignored the two wars - ignored them completely - and he said other things were the drivers of increases in energy prices. The driver has been clearly the war in Iran. Everybody knows t…

The Government is monitoring the situation and will make clear to the Dáil before the summer recess our position on that and how we deal with that. The permanent reductions in cost of living the Government has introduced include free schoolbooks at primary and secondary level, expansion of free hot school meals, universal childcare subsidy, €280 new baby grant, hospital inpatient charges abolished, expanded free GP care, free contraception for 17- to 35-year-olds, free HRT. I could go on in terms of the interventio…

-----and so did the war in Iran lead to very substantial increases.

We need to get to renewables and we need a better grid, but Deputy Tóibín opposed the North-South connector.

You oppose it.

You oppose it. That is the bottom line.

If we keep doing that in this country, we will have more crises.

We have to expand the grid and we have to get more renewable energy. That is it-----

-----but Deputy Tóibín does not support any of that deep down.

First of all, I could not agree more with the Deputy in terms of the wonderful day we had on Sunday with the visit of Mark Carney and his wife Diana back to their home town of Aughagower. I pay tribute to Colette O'Toole and the entire community in Aughagower, including Fr. Tod and all involved, for the celebration of the mass there and the wonderful sense of community spirit which illustrates the strength of community spirit in Ireland - it is still very alive and well. There was a certain degree of pride that the…

I will deal with that argument later.

Indeed, I must pay tribute to Councillor Sean Carey as well for the leadership he gave to the council at the weekend. One of the challenges is that somebody could be on a list for four years, five years or even longer in cities and then an increase in income could suddenly take them out of the eligibility. We have to watch that as well. The Minister is examining it and will come back to us with his proposals on this. The Minister will come back to the House on that because there are many cases similar to what the D…

Will the Deputy tell me what his model is?

The bottom line is the licence creates significant revenue, notwithstanding that it has come down somewhat. The Deputy just cannot have it each and every way. Saying "scrap it" sounds good - it is populist; it is grand. However, the Government cannot be paying for everything all the time and that reality needs to sink in as well. The licence fee is there and it complements what the Government has invested in public service broadcasting and in public service media more generally through Coimisiún na Meán, various sc…

People cannot be looking for extras everywhere across the board-----

----and saying we should just get rid of this model and do this and that.

I disagree with the Deputy. I think we have a strong Minister for justice who is making sensible decisions. Some people will perhaps not like it because they liked the old system. We should not be having multiplicities of hearings. That is not tenable or sustainable. There is going to be no reduction in the cost to the State of providing criminal legal aid because of the reform. The Minister is proposing a flat fee. He has engaged with the Law Society and the Bar Council in respect of this. Expenditure on criminal …

Whose analysis?

Apologies, a Cheann Comhairle, I should not have asked.

It is important though because-----