I must now deal with a postponed division relating to the motion concerning the cost of living. On Wednesday, 26 January 2022, on the question, "That the amendment to the motion be agreed to", a division was claimed and in accordance with Standing Order 80(2), that division must be taken now.
Cost of Living: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]
The following motion was moved by Deputy Ged Nash on Wednesday, 26 January 2022:
That Dáil Éireann:
notes that:
— the annual rate of inflation in Ireland has risen for fourteen months in a row reaching 5.5 per cent in December, the highest in over twenty years;
— the rise in inflation is being driven by increased costs for electricity, home-heating oil and gas, higher rents, housing costs and mortgage payments, and rising prices for food and fuel;
— the National Minimum Wage only increased by 30 cent per hour, or 3 per cent, in January, which is well below the current rate of inflation;
— the €5 increase in weekly social welfare rates in Budget 2022 is not enough to keep pace with rising prices resulting in a real cut in living standards for those on fixed incomes;
— the Department of Finance reported a record tax take for 2021, with Value Added Tax (VAT) alone raising €3 billion more than in 2020, and €1 billion ahead of projections;
— the Irish Congress of Trade Unions issued guidance in December to private sector unions that they should seek pay increases in the range of 2.5 to 4.5 per cent in 2022; and
— Ireland is the most expensive country in the European Union (EU) for housing costs, with record rents, the highest mortgage interest rates in the EU, and a chronic lack of supply that caused house prices to increase by 14 per cent in the year to November 2021;
recognises that:
— the soaring costs of food, heating, fuel and housing is causing real hardship and putting more people at risk of poverty;
— VAT is a tax on consumption which disproportionately impacts on the less well-off, and rising prices, in particular on energy and fuel, is resulting in a VAT windfall to the State;
— rising prices will cost some households an additional €1,300 this year on their gas and electricity bills after prices rose by over 27 per cent in 2021, while petrol and diesel fuels rose by 33.7 per cent;
— increased economic growth, global supply concerns, and the situation in Ukraine will influence future fuel price rises;
— the proposed €100 off energy bills is tokenistic, not enough for those who need it, and poorly targeted;
— measures to control rents have failed, with annual average increases nationally of 5.3 per cent over the last decade, and the most recent Residential Tenancies Board report showed an 8.3 per cent increase on an annual basis in the third-quarter of 2021, while rents in Dublin are now more than 40 per cent above pre-crisis levels;
— the average Irish mortgage interest rate of 2.79 per cent is more than twice the EU average of 1.31 per cent, costing households over €2,000 a year, with no action to date from Government to bring this down;
— Ireland has the second highest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development household spend on childcare costs, with couples spending an average of 24 per cent of income and single parents spending 29 per cent of their wages on childcare costs;
— despite the constitutional commitment to free education, parents and guardians pay significant out-of-pocket costs to send their children to school; and
— since the publication of the Sláintecare Report in 2017, progress on the abolition of patient charges and the rollout of the free general practitioner care is taking too long;
acknowledges that:
— the failure to act on the cost-of-living crisis in a whole-of-Government way will further reduce the living standards of millions of Irish people and condemn more people to poverty and homelessness; and
— the key factors impacting the rising cost of living are within the regulatory and fiscal control of Government; and
calls on the Government to:
— urgently take a whole-of-Government approach to tackling the soaring cost of living;
— introduce an immediate rent freeze and a roadmap to reduce Irish mortgage interest rates to the EU average;
— provide an emergency energy costs relief package for households, which should include a temporary time-limited reduction in the VAT rate on energy and fuel up until the next Budget, and for the Minister for Finance to seek an EU derogation to allow for the long-term retention of the historic 13.5 per cent rate on electricity and gas after such a temporary VAT cut expires;
— introduce additional targeted supports for those in energy poverty by widening access to the fuel allowance, and commit to the introduction of a refundable carbon tax credit for low-income households to support the long-term phasing out of fossil fuels;
— support pay increases for workers across the economy in line with the rising cost of living;
— legislate to enhance collective and sectoral bargaining laws and frameworks to ensure that working people obtain a fairer share of the wealth they create;
— transform the National Minimum Wage to a living wage;
— provide for increases in social welfare payments linked to the rate of inflation, with a long-term commitment to bring weekly rates up to the minimum essential standard of living;
— introduce a windfall levy on excessive profits made in the energy, transport, housing and food sectors due to rising prices;
— take comprehensive action to make education free, introduce a universal public childcare model, bring forward the cap on childcare fees, and accelerate the implementation of Sláintecare; and
— meet any additional costs of living with Covid-19 through 2022, including the proactive provision of antigen tests and FFP2 and medical grade face masks.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "That Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"notes:
— that the annual rate of consumer price inflation, as measured by the European Union's Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, has picked up sharply in recent months, reaching a multi-decade high of 5.7 per cent in December;
— that the recent increase in inflation is partly a result of temporary factors related to the pandemic, which are expected to ease gradually over time;
— that the key drivers of inflation in recent months are 'base effects', the imbalance between global demand and supply that has emerged as economies re-opened, and increases in global energy prices;
— that Budget 2022 contained a large range of measures to protect households from the rising cost of living, including a personal income tax package worth €520 million next year and a social welfare package of over €550 million;
— that the Fuel Allowance was increased by €5 per week to compensate lower income households for the additional energy costs they are likely to incur;
— that there were also increases in the allocation of Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare to ensure childcare prices do not rise;
— that the Government has also approved an Electricity Costs Emergency Benefit Scheme payment of up to €100 to be made this year to an estimated 2.1 million domestic electricity account holders;
— that in relation to the housing market, the Government's Housing for All strategy outlines the Government's plan to increase affordability and housing supply by targeting the delivery of, on average, 33,000 new homes per annum out to 2030;
— that €4 billion was allocated towards housing in Budget 2022 and this includes €2.6 billion in capital funding, which will be used to deliver 9,200 social homes, the vast bulk of which will be new builds;
— that while the price lenders charge for their loans is a commercial matter for individual lenders, a review of the retail banking market is now underway in the Department of Finance and will consider how the banking system can best support economic activity, assess competition and consumer choice in the market for banking services and consider options to further develop the mortgage market;
— the need for the provision of better healthcare, including via Sláintecare, and that the Government has set aside significant resources in that regard;
— that in terms of wages, the Government has increased the National Minimum Wage each year since 2016, with the aim of making the average minimum wage worker better off;
— that a recent report published by the Economic and Social Research Institute found that this policy has been successful in making the average minimum wage worker better off financially over that period;
— that while inflation expectations currently remain well anchored, second round effects, i.e. higher inflation expectations feeding through to wages, pose a risk to the inflation outlook, with the likelihood increasing the longer this temporary period of high inflation lasts; and
— that Ireland is a small open economy, where wage growth in excess of other economies erodes our competitiveness and puts future jobs and economic growth at risk;
recognises that:
— the Government has been proactive in limiting the fallout from higher rates of inflation;
— to support households and firms, the Government has made available €48 billion of fiscal support, one of the most significant policy responses of any country in the world;
— this has led to a significant increase in the general Government debt of around 11 per cent of national income; and
— Ireland's public debt is almost a quarter of a trillion euro as a result and among the highest in the developed world on a per capita basis; and
acknowledges that:
— the recent rise in inflation is primarily the result of global factors and consequently largely beyond the reach of Government policy, though domestic factors are also at play;
— inflationary pressures are partly the result of temporary factors related to the pandemic, which are expected to fade over time;
— the recent increase in inflation is having a significant impact on the cost of living for Irish citizens;
— while the Government has committed to a range of measures to mitigate the impacts of increases in the cost of living on citizens, it must pursue broadly neutral budgetary policy in order to contain domestic inflationary pressures; and
— it is crucial that we do not have an inflation 'chain reaction' that would damage our international cost competitiveness."
-(Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Sean Fleming)
Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 73; Níl, 60; Staon, 0.
Tá
- Brophy, Colm.
- Browne, James.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Burke, Colm.
- Burke, Peter.
- Butler, Mary.
- Byrne, Thomas.
- Cahill, Jackie.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Cannon, Ciarán.
- Carey, Joe.
- Carroll MacNeill, Jennifer.
- Chambers, Jack.
- Collins, Niall.
- Costello, Patrick.
- Coveney, Simon.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Creed, Michael.
- Crowe, Cathal.
- Dillon, Alan.
- Donohoe, Paschal.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Feighan, Frankie.
- Flaherty, Joe.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Foley, Norma.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Harris, Simon.
- Haughey, Seán.
- Heydon, Martin.
- Higgins, Emer.
- Hourigan, Neasa.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Lahart, John.
- Lawless, James.
- Leddin, Brian.
- Madigan, Josepha.
- Matthews, Steven.
- McAuliffe, Paul.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McEntee, Helen.
- McGrath, Michael.
- McHugh, Joe.
- Moynihan, Aindrias.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Murnane O'Connor, Jennifer.
- Naughton, Hildegarde.
- Noonan, Malcolm.
- O'Brien, Darragh.
- O'Brien, Joe.
- O'Callaghan, Jim.
- O'Connor, James.
- O'Dea, Willie.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Donovan, Patrick.
- O'Dowd, Fergus.
- O'Gorman, Roderic.
- O'Sullivan, Christopher.
- Ó Cathasaigh, Marc.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Phelan, John Paul.
- Rabbitte, Anne.
- Richmond, Neale.
- Ring, Michael.
- Ryan, Eamon.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Smyth, Ossian.
- Stanton, David.
- Troy, Robert.
- Varadkar, Leo.
Níl
- Andrews, Chris.
- Bacik, Ivana.
- Berry, Cathal.
- Boyd Barrett, Richard.
- Brady, John.
- Browne, Martin.
- Buckley, Pat.
- Cairns, Holly.
- Canney, Seán.
- Carthy, Matt.
- Clarke, Sorca.
- Collins, Michael.
- Conway-Walsh, Rose.
- Cronin, Réada.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Cullinane, David.
- Daly, Pa.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Donnelly, Paul.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Farrell, Mairéad.
- Fitzmaurice, Michael.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Funchion, Kathleen.
- Gannon, Gary.
- Gould, Thomas.
- Guirke, Johnny.
- Healy-Rae, Danny.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Kelly, Alan.
- Kenny, Martin.
- Lowry, Michael.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- McGrath, Mattie.
- McNamara, Michael.
- Mitchell, Denise.
- Munster, Imelda.
- Murphy, Paul.
- Mythen, Johnny.
- Nash, Ged.
- Nolan, Carol.
- O'Callaghan, Cian.
- O'Donoghue, Richard.
- O'Reilly, Louise.
- O'Rourke, Darren.
- Ó Laoghaire, Donnchadh.
- Ó Murchú, Ruairí.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- Quinlivan, Maurice.
- Ryan, Patricia.
- Shanahan, Matt.
- Sherlock, Sean.
- Shortall, Róisín.
- Smith, Bríd.
- Smith, Duncan.
- Stanley, Brian.
- Tully, Pauline.
- Ward, Mark.
- Whitmore, Jennifer.
Staon
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Jack Chambers and Brendan Griffin; Níl, Deputies Duncan Smith and Ged Nash.
Amendment declared carried.
Motion, as amended, put and declared carried.
Cuireadh an Dáil ar athló ar 11 p.m. go dtí 9 a.m., Déardaoin, an 27 Eanáir 2022.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 9 a.m. on Thursday, 27 January 2022.