Those are the facts.

House prices are through the roof.

Will the Tánaiste acknowledge house prices are through the roof?

I will take the Deputy's money on that one. He is not going to get a clear answer.

The Taoiseach would want to tell his MEP. She was cheering it on television recently.

The outcome of the recent EU Fisheries Council has landed a devastating blow on Irish fishing families in coastal communities. It is an affront to Ireland's sovereignty over its national resources. Irish fishermen now face catastrophic losses. Jobs are at risk in my own county and elsewhere. Local economies are going to be stripped of hundreds of millions of euro and families who have worked the sea for generations are being told that their livelihoods may no longer survive. This is all happening at a time vast wea…

I raise with the Minister the profits that insurance companies are making in Ireland. When we talk of profit margins, we are talking specifically about operating profits, which, as we all know, have a specific meaning that is well understood internationally. It is always before tax and interest deductions. Will the Minister set out the operating profits of motor insurance companies and in the public and employer liability insurance market using this standard definition?

The Minister knows I am raising this because of the invaluable reportage we get from the Central Bank every year that is reported upon and understood by us. It has its own definition of operating profits. When we talk about the operating profits of any company, that means operating profits before tax or interest is deducted. That is the standard definition. The Central Bank uses its own definition which has under-reported the profits of the insurance industry by not using the standard definition. In the past five y…

Will the Minister provide those?

I appreciate that. I have engaged with the Central Bank in relation to this and it has provided me with the operating profits as commonly understood for motor insurance. It did not have them for the public liability. This is why I welcome this. This shows us two things. The insurance companies are making bumper profits. We know from the National Claims Information Database, NCID, reports that they are making three times what they told us they were targeting. However, it is worse than that because the Central Bank i…

Last week, the CSO published inflation figures of 3.2%. That is the highest rate we have seen in almost two years and way above what the Department of Finance projected on budget day. At that time, it was projected that we would be looking at an inflation rate for this year of 1.8%, which is starting to look like wishful thinking. How were the Department's projections so far off? Has the Tánaiste asked the Deputy to update them?

People are being crucified as a result of the cost-of-living crisis. I have raised this with the Tánaiste time and again. Inflation is going back up and is eating away at workers' wages. It is leaving households struggling to make ends meet. Real wages declined in 2022 and 2023. They only increased by 0.1% in 2024. We are in danger of seeing the same again in 2025. The Tánaiste has made the point repeatedly about wages outpacing inflation. Over the past three months, however, we have again seen inflation outpacing …

I will go back over that again. I have not disputed that is the case in 2025; I am saying we may end up with it not being the case before the end of the year, because for the past three months, inflation has been outpacing wages. There are warning bells going off all around the place. Inflation stands at 3.2%. It was projected to be 1.8%. The Government delivered a budget. The Tánaiste is the guy who signed off on that and who brought the Finance Bill through this House. The ESRI has been very clear that everybody …

I have raised this issue with the Tánaiste over and over again. It is clear that people are being ripped off. I wonder whether that is the assessment of the Tánaiste, as Minister for Finance, or does he think it is okay that banks make €5 billion in profits and charge higher interest rates than the average in the EU. That is where they are making their money. It is not due to huge innovations. It is because of the European Central Bank, ECB, interest rate in the main that these banks are making the profits they are…

Deputy O'Callaghan made the point. To tell us that interests have dropped 0.2% in a year on weighted average, when the ECB has reduced interest rates seven or eight times in the past 16 months, is a nonsense argument.

It is a nonsense argument. The banks should be reducing their interest rates beyond the rate they are offering at this time. The ECB has given them the flexibility to do that by reducing the rate. I am not expecting them to be passed on percentage by percentage, but there is no doubt that Irish banks are creaming it off the backs of mortgage holders and the Tánaiste is doing nothing about it. His predecessor did nothing about it, and the Tánaiste's response here is that he will not do anything about it. All he is s…

Can I raise a point of order? I would like clarification because I was not aware of this. Are we allowed to ask supplementary questions on priority questions?

It was provided for there in the last question. Priority questions are protected, as far as I know today, from other Members interfering in them.

That is okay. I was not sure if it had changed or not, genuinely.

Exactly.