Living standards will rise above inflation next year, Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said.
Mr Martin said inflation will be on a “downward trajectory” over the next 12 months and that combined with various measures the Government is taking, living standards would increase.
The Tánaiste was responding to People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett in the Dáil on Thursday, who said people would be protesting this Saturday in advance of the Budget next week because they were “absolutely crucified” with the cost of living and housing crises.
Mr Boyd Barrett said mortgage holders were paying thousands extra in interest, thousands of households were in arrears on their energy bills, families were being hammered with childcare costs, while renters were paying “absolutely unaffordable rents, if they can even find a place to live”.
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“But all of this hardship and suffering is happening at a time when the Government has an unprecedented budget surplus, projected to be €16 billion next year, when the country is wealthier than it has ever been,” the Dún Laoghaire TD said.
“According to the Central Bank, aggregate household wealth is over a trillion euro this year and corporate profits have nearly quadrupled in the last 10 years. Yet in advance of the Budget, the Government is playing down expectations saying we can’t protect everybody against the cost of living hikes because it would cause inflation.”
The People Before Profit TD said this was a “false and dishonest narrative”. Mr Boyd Barrett also said the Government was refusing to acknowledge “greed-flation” and “profiteering by the banks, supermarket chains, property developers, corporate landlords”.
He added that the Government was “protecting a tiny few who have all the wealth and all the profits” and called for a wealth tax to “redistribute the wealth that exists in this country”.
In response, Mr Martin said once-off measures announced in last year’s budget “insulated most households” from rising energy prices last winter, according to research from the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), while the lowest income groups were “cushioned against the inflationary spiral”.
“It is our intention in this Budget to continue to cushion people, because next year living standards will rise above inflation,” he said.
“Inflation is on a downward trajectory over the next 12 months and when you combine the various measures that we will take with pay and tax relief, and so on ... Living standards next year, it is our projection, will increase.”
The Fianna Fáil leader added that the Government was committed to protecting people against cost of living increases and to “a fair Budget”.
“We need to be fair to those who are out there working, through our tax measures that we will adopt, and indeed in terms of other supports that we can provide,” he said.
