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living in consistent poverty nearly doubled, to more than 100,000; and — Children's Rights Alliance Chief Executive Officer Tanya Ward has described the cumulative impact of continued soaring costs as "a landslide effect" for low-income families, meaning providing basic necessities like nutritious food or a warm … Parliamentary Budget Office, the Government's recent budget reduced the incomes of the poorest households by over four per cent and massively increased poverty rates among elderly people from 13 per cent to 19 per cent; — according to the Disability Federation of Ireland, Budget 2026 also

billion in tax cuts to fast-food giants and the VAT cut to developers, investor landlords and funds in the budget - €1 billion each year will go to them yet when it comes to disabled people or children in poverty, the Government says it is not fiscally sustainable

fined properly. This is not happening enough because there is a gap between the amount by which wholesale gas, wholesale electricity and wholesale food costs are going up and what people are actually being forced to pay. The gas prices people are being charged have increased 100% since … about, and what was not mentioned enough at all last week, is inequality - the gap in respect of those children who are in poverty in this country. We have one in five children living in poverty. In some form, they are affected by poverty. We have, shamefully, almost

true cost of living after tax. People in my position are working hard yet still struggling daily to afford basic necessities such as food, electricity and heating. We feel overlooked and forgotten despite our efforts to contribute positively to society. The Minister in his statement spoke about … change in their lives and it is not coming. Another thing that was lacking in the Minister’s statement was mention of energy poverty. That was something the Department spoke about a number of years ago but all we hear now is energy affordability. The Minister is denying

workers and on families more generally. That is why we announced a €750 million package, which will help workers, farmers and contractors. Food production is very important. The general excise duties will help also. We also increased the State pensions by €10 in the budget. We increased child … extra €8 for the families of children under 12, bringing it to €58 per week. That was to deal with child poverty because we did prioritise child poverty, along with housing and infrastructure. We also prioritised disability. An extra €500 million was allocated to disability services. We increased

fertiliser and pesticides and Gulf-based fossil fuels. It has been warned that if this crisis persists, fertiliser prices will increase and ultimately food prices will rocket, causing huge problems for the poorest people on the planet, but also for western economies. In Ireland, if anything was shown … rolled out across all homes, not just for people who already have very nice incomes and homes. There is huge energy poverty in Ireland. The motion cites that almost one third of households are in energy poverty. There are huge arrears on gas and electricity bills

Department of education. The Government managed to spend nearly a billion euro on fuel supports without any new measures that will tackle energy poverty or address the near €200 million of arrears on household gas and electricity bills. As our Labour Party finance spokesperson, Ged Nash, has said … pressure in this cost-of-living crisis. There is pressure from rising energy bills but also from skyrocketing grocery prices as we face food insecurity, and from escalating housing costs. We need substantive engagement from Government at the upcoming LEEF talks, substantive engagement with the trade unions

supplies with consequential impacts on other products like fertiliser, helium and so on, which in turn could have impacts on jobs and on food production across the world. These are very serious issues we are all facing. We acknowledge fully that this is creating pressures on families … from our perspective, in the budget we majored very heavily on housing, on infrastructure, on disability, with a 20% increase, and on child poverty, with the support payments for children going up substantially by record levels. For children over

living through a moment of unprecedented crisis, with record levels of households in arrears and skyrocketing numbers of people at risk of energy poverty. Yet, with each passing day things are deteriorating. Across the country, ordinary people are doing everything right. They are working hard, budgeting carefully … seems to arrive. That is not leadership; it is political failure. When people are forced to choose between heating their homes and putting food on the table, the response cannot be half measures and recycled analyses. An emergency requires an emergency response. What we have seen

major works on your house or move out. It is much simpler. Solar represents one of the fastest, simplest ways to reduce energy poverty and improve resilience to energy shocks. However, there are big upfront costs to solar, and it is not affordable to everyone. That … quickly make a difference in people’s homes. Along with highlighting our energy insecurity, this crisis has highlighted growing vulnerability regarding our food security. Our agriculture sector is deeply exposed to global markets, particularly for fertiliser, fuel and animal feed. We saw this following the invasion of Ukraine

reality. We have responded in a substantial, targeted and sustainable way - not just a global sum of €750 million but in terms of food production, road haulage and a reduction in excise duties, which benefits everybody. We will continue to keep a focus on this. In terms … very clear that housing remains our ultimate priority. Infrastructure is key to everybody in the country. That is clear. Disability and child poverty are other issues. These are areas on which we have focused very strongly and are in a position to target. The Deputy does

benefit from Ireland's renewable energy transition and will continue to explore how best to integrate solar and other technologies into our energy poverty retrofit programmes; — in the long run, the best way to protect Ireland from the impact of international fossil fuel prices is to reduce … Deputy Cairns spoke about. That has also been announced and will be deployed to give real cash payments to assist productive sectors, particularly food production, but also in the supply chain that are critically important to that. They are on top of additional measures that were taken, such

does not care. After housing costs, one in five people was at risk of poverty or lived in relative poverty last year, with over 300,000 people in arrears on and unable to afford to pay their electricity bills. That was before the coming increases hit. The most … there is a lesson from the protests which is that unless you can cause significant destructive action, if you are not a fast-food giant, a developer or a major multinational like Google, the Government is not going to listen to you. Workers need to prepare

carbon intensive and subject to rapid price shocks; — in confronting the fact that 29 per cent of Irish households are in energy poverty and hundreds of thousands of electricity and gas customers are in arrears, we must ensure that in moving to a net-zero Ireland we adhere … Phase 2 of the National Land Use Review has been with the Minister for Climate, Energy, and the Environment, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Minister of State at Housing, Local Government and Heritage almost a year and is still not published; — the Government