Sinn Féin has been asking us to chase inflation from the beginning. That has been a consistent theme that it has been articulating since the beginning of the year. By the way, protecting the economy is protecting our people. Protecting jobs is protecting our people. We should not underestimate the economic recovery that has happened, which gives us some buffer - not a total one - for protecting people against what was predicted coming out of Covid. No one predicted that we would be at 2.5 million people working in …

The Deputy suggested earlier that we were asking people to wait six months. We are not asking people to wait six months at all.

What we are saying is that-----

-----because we have to go through expenditure in terms of detailed departmental expenditure to deal with issues like childcare, housing and-----

Sorry.

I did not say that at all-----

-----that that is why we are ruling it out. Of course I did not say that.

The excise duty measures have been extended to budget day already. We fully accept the pressures that are on people. Since October we have brought in €2.4 billion worth of measures that, in many respects, are targeted at healthcare, education, fuel and transport costs, including reducing prices in public transport. Deputy McDonald also called for an emergency budget but I am not sure that Deputies are really talking about an emergency budget; they are just talking about an emergency expenditure programme if we are …

I do not disagree with much of what the Deputy is saying. People are terrified of the winter and we want to make sure we have a comprehensive package that protects people throughout the winter. Throughout and beyond the winter, we want to protect people as best we can. We have to do it while taking on board a range of issues. Right now, we have to settle our expenditure levels in every Department. Why? Because we need to protect education, health, housing and social protection. Those Departments have measures that …

I will make one key point to the Deputy first of all. He said that we are waiting for clinical reviews to get political cover. Anybody who knows anything about how healthcare has evolved over the past 20 years will know that clinical expertise has been the driver and has occasioned courageous political decisions with regard to modernising healthcare service in this country. Politics likes to ignore the harsh advice that comes from the bodies that set the various standards such as the College of Anaesthesiologists o…

The Deputy knows that is not the case. The existing cath lab has four whole-time equivalent approved consultant posts. An additional intervention cardiologist post was filled on a permanent basis on 1 March.

The Deputy is now upping the ante. When I met him at the commencement of this Dáil, getting that second cath lab in place with staff was a key priority for us all collectively.

That was the Deputy's priority and the priority of everybody here.

I accept there are delays in getting the construction and so on because of Covid and all the rest of it. I cannot go down there and build it myself. However, we have committed the resources to doing it and we have asked the South/South West Hospital Group and the HSE to get on with it as fast as they possibly can - both the physical facility and the resources. Regarding the broader situation in Waterford, there needs to be balance. The south east is progressing. The Government was very concerned about the economic …

The Deputy said the Government takes taxes but we do not take them. The Government provides services to the people of Ireland through raising revenue and spending it. We need a tax base to fund education, housing, health, childcare services and child protection services and the development of transport infrastructure. We need revenue to do those things. Every stable democracy needs a stable revenue base. Across the European Union, a broad VAT directive sets out the bands for the various VAT rates that can be deploy…

First, there were approximately 33,000 housing commencements from April to April. There are clearly challenges facing housing because of commodity prices going up and inflation generally. The Ukraine war-----

Deputy Mattie McGrath raises his eyebrows every time I mention Ukraine-----

The point I am making to Deputy O'Donoghue is that the Ukraine war does matter, has mattered, and is the driving factor in all of this. It could get worse in terms of energy. It could get worse because of the Russian strategy to stop the flow of gas to Germany and other major customers. That will have an impact.

Thankfully, we are not as dependent on Russian gas and oil for our energy supplies. More generally, if there is a contraction in supply globally, it will affect everybody at the end of the day in terms of pricing and so on. I must put it to Deputy O'Donoghue that the next budget will be about expenditure, tax and a package of measures to alleviate the pressures on people.

Parallel with that we have a public service pay process in place. Every extra per cent of that context is a substantial proportion of expenditure also. There are significant issues across the board that have to be met. I think I lost 20 seconds in the first round or rather, I did not avail of them.