Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 10 Feb 2022

Vol. 1017 No. 7

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

Deputy Pearse Doherty

Tá an cuma ar an scéal nach dtuigeann an Rialtas an phráinn a bhaineann le déileáil leis an ghéarchéim maidir le costais mhaireachtála na tíre seo. Tá a gcuid réiteach ró-bheag agus ró-mhall agus caithfear réitigh a chur i ngníomh atá dírithe orthu siúd ar ioncaim íseal agus orthu siúd atá ar mheánioncaim. Tá daoine ag streachailt. B'fhéidir nach dtuigeann an Tánaiste seo ach caithfidh an Rialtas tacú leo anois, gan mhoill.

For the past year Sinn Féin has been calling on the Government to get a grip on the cost-of-living crisis. What has the Government done? It has talked about it a lot in recent weeks but it appears that it is about to announce a package of measures that will only scratch the surface. People are telling me the Government simply does not get it and that it does not understand the challenges facing ordinary workers and families. If the Government needed an example of that, it is this. A Minister of State went on national radio telling people to stop complaining, while behind closed doors the Tánaiste, the Taoiseach, the leader of the Green Party and their Cabinet colleagues signed off on an €86,000 increase for a senior public servant who is now on a salary of nearly €300,000 per year. The Government announced an electricity credit of €100 last year that still has not been delivered and will not be delivered for weeks to come. I ask the Tánaiste not to try to repackage that as some new initiative today. People need support now and they have already been waiting four months for that €100.

I am not sure if the Tánaiste had the opportunity to listen to May on “Morning Ireland” this morning. May is from County Wexford and she wears a dressing gown over her clothes and drinks hot tea to stay warm because she cannot afford her heating bills. Maybe he listened to Hugh from Leitrim, who has had to cut back on food because of the rise in prices. There are thousands of people like Hugh and May. Rising prices effect everybody but it does not impact everybody equally. Low and middle income households spend more on heating their homes, on feeding their families and on rent than those at the top do and they do so with less money. This morning, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul found that two in five people have cut back on essential heating and electricity.

Workers and families need targeted support now and they need a Government that is willing to act and listen now. We need a direct cost-of-living cash payment, as Sinn Féin has proposed, of €200 for individuals on incomes of €30,000 or less and €100 for individuals on incomes between €30,000 and €60,000. This would provide households with direct support of more than €500 in response to the cost-of-living crisis. We need to get money into people’s hands now. For some, they will use it to pay their gas and electricity bills and for others it will be a fill of oil or ensuring they have enough diesel in their cars so they can get to work.

It is time to wake up to the reality and it is time for the Tánaiste and his Government colleagues to understand where ordinary people are. Will the Government bring forward a targeted cost-of-living cash payment as we have proposed? Will the Government put one month of rent back into renter’s pockets and ban rent increases for the next three years? For God’s sake, will the Government stop the increase in oil and gas prices which it plans to implement in the month of May by heaping additional carbon taxes on people?

The Tánaiste

I acknowledge again on behalf of the Government that we know the cost of living is rising and inflation is running at about 5%. As far back as last March, before the Deputy and his party were doing so, I was signalling concerns about the fact a period of inflation was likely to arise, and that is happening now. As far back as last June I was advocating for a tax, welfare and pensions package in the budget, which others, including the Deputy's party, opposed at the time.

The Government acknowledges the cost of living is rising, that it is biting people and that it is hurting people in the pocket. It is hurting family budgets, a lot of people are squeezed and some people are having to make hard decisions about what they spend their money on, whether it is energy, fuel or groceries. We see it all around us. It is what the Deputy’s constituents are saying to him and what my constituents are saying to me. The cost of filling a tank with petrol or diesel has gone up dramatically and people are shocked when they see their electricity or gas bills. Energy prices impact transport prices and so the cost of groceries is rising too.

The Government gets and understands that and that is why we have been acting to try to cushion the blow. In the budget, and these measures only came into effect in recent weeks, we had a €1 billion cost of living package, with increases in pensions and welfare and reductions in personal income taxation. That cost of living package worth €1 billion that was announced in the budget only came into effect in recent weeks and it was opposed by the Sinn Féin Party. We will add to that today through an additional package to help people with the cost of living. There will be a broad measure that will help every household, because even households on middle incomes are suffering from rising costs, in energy bills in particular, and there will be targeted measures that will help those who are suffering the most, particularly older people and people on low incomes or on welfare. The budget package and the package we will announce today will be worth somewhere in the region of €1.4 billion to €1.5 billion, which is considerable. That is a lot of money the Government is saying it needs to give back to people to help them with the rising cost of living.

I know as well as the Deputy does that, no matter what we announce today, it will not be enough. The Sinn Féin press release is already written: inadequate; not enough. I could write it for them. In fact, it was probably written days ago. Promises are cheap and easy, and more and more the public is seeing through the party. They see what it is not doing in Northern Ireland to help people with the cost of living and they know that promises are cheap. It is so easy for any Opposition party to say it will do twice whatever the Government will do, but people see through that and they know it is not honest. We have had a very significant cost of living package in the budget which kicked in during January. We will add to that through our announcements today.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

With all the recent talk from Ministers, including the Tánaiste, it is clear from that response that they simply do not get it. They do not get where ordinary people are at and they do not understand the fact rents are spiralling out of control. In my county there was a 24% increase and throughout the State there was an average 10% increase. The Government does not understand the impact this is having on those on low and middle incomes. The Tánaiste talks about a package in the region of €400 million, but that will not scratch the surface of what needs to happen.

We have put forward proposal after proposal to the Government. Do not increase the price of oil and gas in May, which it plans to do by increasing the carbon tax. Put a month's rent back into renters' pockets by introducing a tax credit. The Government has refused to do that. We are blue in the face talking to it about this measure for the past three years.

We are telling the Government that what is needed is cash, directly into the pockets of hard-pressed workers and families. That can be done through a cost of living cash payment of €200 for all those earning below €30,000 and €100 for those earning below €60,000. That is the type of proposal that a Government should be bringing forward if it understood where people are at, but this Government simply does not and it is tantamount to what the Minister of State said the last day, "Stop complaining; do the work yourself and leave the Government alone."

The Tánaiste

The Deputy's party co-chairs the government in Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin has been in office there for most of the past 20 years. The Minister of Finance in Northern Ireland is a Sinn Féin MLA, a member of Deputy Doherty's party. Do not tell me Sinn Féin does not have fiscal levers and fiscal tools; it does. It just has to make choices to remove funding from one area and allocate it to another. That is what governments have to do. What the government Sinn Féin co-leads in Northern Ireland has done is minimal compared with what we have already done here to help people with the cost of living and is much less than what we are going to do today. What Sinn Féin has done in Northern Ireland is give people an energy grant to help them with the cost of energy, which it is then going to take back off them. It is not even a grant; it is a loan. They are going to get it this year and then the government is going to take it back off them next year and the year after. That is what Sinn Féin is doing in government and that is what it would do if it was in government here. It would do less than us, and if it did give people anything, it would probably take it back the year after-----

Deputy Pearse Doherty

Doing less than you would be extremely hard because you have done nothing. That is the problem. You are tone deaf to where people are at.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Tá mé ag bogadh ar aghaidh. Go raibh míle maith agaibh as ucht bhur tacaíochta.

(Interruptions).

Deputy Charlie McConalogue

The Deputy should stop and have a chat with them on the way home, give them the benefit of his wisdom

Deputy Pearse Doherty

Deputy McConalogue should look after the mica families----

(Interruptions).

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputies-----

Deputy Pearse Doherty

-----instead of forgetting about the people of Donegal when he took up his position in Cabinet.

Deputy Charlie McConalogue

Talk is cheap.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Páirtí an Lucht Oíbre-----

Deputy Pearse Doherty

Disgraceful. He abandoned his own people. He abandoned his county-----

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Ní féidir leanúint ar aghaidh mar seo. Más é bhur dtoil é, taispeáin beagáinín measa ar a chéile. Táim ag bogadh ar aghaidh anois. Glaoim ar an Teachta Ó Ríordáin.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

Two weeks on from voting down the Labour Party's plans to address the cost-of-living crisis, the Government will announce some token measures today. The package that is emerging is around €450 million, which is a drop in the ocean compared with what ordinary families are having to grapple with. The official Government advice from Ministers is to shop around for better value but those suffering under record rent prices cannot shop around; they need a rent freeze. Those looking at soaring energy bills that are up by 30% cannot shop around for better deals; they need real intervention. Those in low paid work cannot shop around; they need a pay rise. Those forced to commute back to the office cannot shop around; they need the right to flexible work. Those wondering how they will feed their families know that shopping around will not help when bread, milk and butter are all rising in price, having gone up by between 10% and 15% over recent weeks.

What we know about the Government's cost-of-living package is that it will not go far enough, and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform admitted as much this morning. The Government has already committed to a €100 rebate on electricity bills at a cost of €210 million. If that it is doubled, it will bring it to €420 million. By our calculations, an extra two week's of fuel allowance would cost €21 million, but the Government has not widened eligibility. Figures provided to my colleague, Deputy Sherlock, show that more than 20,000 people who applied for the fuel allowance last year were refused. Already this year, of more than 7,000 applications received, more than 3,000 were rejected. In the budget, we called for eligibility to be extended to an extra 100,000 households, but once again, the Government's response is too little and too late.

Bringing forward the working family payment increase by three months will cost around €6 million to €9 million and benefit over 50,000 families. However, for the hundreds of thousands of families struggling with the cost of childcare, education and healthcare, there is nothing of substance emerging. Instead of investing in public services, this Government is interested in tax cuts, in throwing €600 million at people who do not need it. The VAT windfall was €1 billion ahead of projections. In January alone, the VAT take was €400 million ahead of what was collected in January 2020. We have the opportunity and this is about choice. There has been no shortage of solutions put forward to ease the burden on workers and families.

It is time the Government shopped around for some new ideas. Will the Tánaiste commit to an immediate increase in the minimum wage? Will he admit the budget last October got it wrong? Will he now commit to a real mini-budget that will do more than tinker at the edges and provide real relief to workers and families?

The Tánaiste

I acknowledge again the seriousness of this issue, the fact the cost of living is rising and rising fast, that many families are feeling the pinch and that the Government needs to act. As I said in my response earlier, the Government has already acted but we will need to do more. The budget, which was passed in October and which only came into effect a few weeks ago, included a cost-of-living package worth more than €1 billion. That included increases in pensions and welfare and reductions in personal taxation for middle-income earners. People earning €38,000, €45,000 or €50,000 per year were the main beneficiaries of that in cash and percentage terms. While the Labour Party may think that people earning around €30,000 or €40,000 are not feeling the pinch, I think it is wrong. We stand over the fact we reduced personal taxes for people on middle incomes. That was capped once people hit the higher income levels.

What else was in the budget? There was an increase in pensions across the board, increases in weekly welfare payments and targeted increases in payments. The living alone allowance was increased and for people on welfare with a dependent child, the child dependant allowance was increased. The fuel allowance eligibility was widened in the previous budget, only a few months ago. While many people would have received an increase of only €5 per week, those living alone and those with dependent children received increases of around €14 per week, which is obviously a much larger figure than €5. There have also been increases in pay. A public sector pay deal has been agreed, providing for pay increases, albeit modest ones, this February and October. The national minimum wage went up just five weeks ago. We have brought in a freeze on childcare fees which has been welcomed by the vast majority of families, given the high cost of childcare. We have also reduced the cost of medicines.

A €1 billion cost-of-living package was announced in the budget in October, legislated for in November and December, opposed by the Opposition parties and it came into effect only a few weeks ago. We acknowledge that because inflation is higher than we anticipated it would be, we now have to do more, and that is what we will do today. We will announce additional measures to reduce the cost of living for people, particularly the cost of energy, but also putting more money into the pockets of those who need that money the most.

I also need to acknowledge, and Deputy Ó Ríordáin should acknowledge it too, that no matter what we announce, he will say it is not enough. He does not even know what we are going to announce and he has already said it is not enough. The press release is already written, the lines have already been sent out to his party's Deputies, Senators and councillors. No matter what the Government does, Deputy Ó Ríordáin is going to say it is not enough because promises are cheap when you are in opposition and you do not have to make decisions. Promises are cheap but they are not honest. We all know what the Labour Party did in government and it was not give money back to people; it was take it off them.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

They were in government with you. You were in the same government; do not forget that.

(Interruptions).

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

What the Tánaiste is engaged in is Bertienomics. He is trying to convince people that the Government can cut their taxes, tinker around with public services and it will all be fine. What the Labour Party has suggested is that there should not be tax cuts. The Tánaiste may think that is an easy thing for an Opposition party to say but it is not. We are telling the people of Ireland straight that if they want to have a proper decrease in their cost of living, the State should provide it and we should not wait for the market to provide solutions on rent or on childcare, and we should not be married to the market as much as this Government. We believe in direct State investment and support. This Government will not introduce a rent freeze. It just will not do it. It will not support a proper publicly funded childcare system, as in every other European country. People in Northern Ireland do not have to pay for schoolbooks or for GP visits but this Government does not have the same vision for citizens in this part of the island.

What we in the Labour Party are saying is that we do not want play cheap politics. We do not want to do the auction stuff on tax cuts. We believe in State intervention. What the Tánaiste is trying to do is make cheap political jibes while people are battling for bread, milk and butter.

The Tánaiste

If Deputy Ó Ríordáin can avoid the cheap political jibes for the next day or two or the next few weeks, I will publicly come in here and compliment him on that. He is very capable of that.

When it comes to one issue, personal taxation, I respectfully disagree with Deputy Ó Ríordáin. There are people earning €38,000, €40,000, €45,000 per year who are struggling with the bills too. People may have very high incomes on paper or even middle incomes on paper, but when account is taken of income tax, childcare, rent and mortgages-----

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

Exactly; childcare. Spending €10,000 a year on childcare. That is the point.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy-----

The Tánaiste

Those exact same people can struggle with the bills. The best way to help those who struggle with the bills is to increase their income or reduce the amount of tax they pay and then they can decide what they spend it on, whether it is the mortgage, rent, childcare or energy costs, because everyone's finances are different. The advantage of pay increases and reducing personal taxation is that you can help everyone. That is why we stand over that decision.

I agree on childcare. That is why we brought in two years of early childhood care and education, ECCE, for all children, why we introduced the national childcare scheme and why there is a freeze on childcare fees this year. I believe that in the next budget, when we are in a position to do it, because we got the fundamentals right, we will be able to make a significant move on childcare as well.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I think the problem is the Tánaiste does not really seem to understand that the cost of living crisis that we are facing is, in fact, an emergency. Just like we had a housing emergency, which he finally and reluctantly had to accept existed, he needs to accept this is an emergency. Working people, pensioners and the least well-off are being absolutely crucified by the stratospheric increase in the cost of accommodation, rents, energy prices and now all sorts of other rising costs of living. What absolutely infuriates me is that the Government pretends as if this is like the weather, that it is not really to do with it, that it has something to do with international pressures, that it is not the Government's responsibility, and there is nothing it can really do about it.

I want to inject something that has not been said in this debate, namely, that there are winners in all of this, and that is what needs to be addressed. Inflation should actually be renamed price gouging and profiteering. The reason rents go up is because landlords increase rents to unaffordable levels. The reason energy prices go up is because energy supply companies increase the cost of that energy and they are making a lot of money out of it. The heating misery and the housing misery that ordinary people are suffering is benefiting certain groups of people, particularly corporate interests. Globally, BP and Shell have seen their profits jump to €40 billion last year. Shell's profits have quadrupled in one year. In one year they have gone up by 400%. But that is not just an international phenomenon; it is happening here. The ESB has seen its profits jump. In 2020, it made €616 million profit, and for just one half of the year last year, it made €356 million, so it is set to exceed €700 million. Energia has seen its profits jump by 46% last year, 45% the year before and it is paying dividends to its shareholders of €30 million. There are winners and there are losers.

The same happens with rents. Rents in this country have gone up by 61% in the last decade. Rents in the rest of Europe have gone up too, but only by 14%. The Government is allowing the landlords to cream it on the back of the housing misery of ordinary working people. That is the reality, and that is never spoken about. The rental income of IRES REIT, the biggest landlord in this country, increased to €24.7 million last year. It increased by 6% up to €30 million. While rents are stratospheric and are completely unaffordable for working people - €2,000 on average in Dublin; €1,500 on average for a one-bedroom apartment; €2,200 for a two-bedroom apartment in my area - these people are creaming it, and the Government allows it to happen.

The Government has no problem with their profits going through the roof, but when workers say they would like their minimum wage increased, the Government has a big problem with that. It argues it cannot put it to €12.90 or €15, as we proposed in the Dáil this week. It cannot do that but it has no problem with the REIT's profits going through the roof.

Why does the Government not change its priorities away from protecting the profiteering of energy companies and landlords to supporting an increase in the minimum wage to a living wage-----

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Thank you, Deputy. The Tánaiste to respond.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

-----to controlling and cutting the rents being charged by landlords, and to controlling and cutting the price of energy using the powers available to the Government?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has gained an extra minute from a malfunctioning clock. He is one of the winners today.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

That is a rare win.

The Tánaiste

The Low Pay Commission was established back in 2016-----

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

By the Labour Party.

The Tánaiste

By the Labour Party and Fine Gael.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

Thank you.

The Tánaiste

You are welcome. It is a statement of fact. It is also a statement of fact what I said earlier but the Deputy is not willing to accept those facts. In 2016, the Labour Party and Fine Gael together established the Low Pay Commission. Since then the national minimum wage has increased by 26%. Inflation has increased by 7%. While the Deputy is talking and speechifying and demanding increases in the national minimum wage, we have actually done it. We have increased the minimum wage ahead of inflation since 2016. I appreciate we do not know what inflation will be like for this year and that that may not turn out to be the case. That is why we need to take other actions. However, the facts are that, since the Low Pay Commission was established in 2016, the minimum wage has gone up 26% and the cost of living has gone up by 7%. That is a real increase in real terms. We have the second highest minimum wage in the developed world. When you adjust for the higher cost of living in Ireland, it is the sixth highest. Median wages in Ireland are 36% higher than the European average despite claims by some that the opposite is the case.

Once again, I emphasise that the issue of rising costs and the costs of living is very much on the mind of everyone in the Government. There is a competition in this House, sometimes led by the Opposition but sometimes by Deputies of all parties, to make out that X person understands things more than Y person. That is nonsense. We are all elected by our communities. We all have constituents, constituency clinics and offices, and the exact same people are saying the same to the Deputy that they are saying to me - that they have noticed a huge increase in the cost of filling the car with petrol or diesel, that they are shocked when they see their gas or electricity bill, that they are noticing prices rising in the supermarket - and they are worried that it will keep rising. That is the biggest worry in many ways, that prices will continue to rise. That is why we had a €1 billion cost of living package in the budget which only kicked in in January and why we will make further decisions today to help all households with their energy bills as well as some targeted measures for those on the lowest incomes who need that help the most. So while the Deputy is speaking and preaching, we are actually taking action.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

The minimum wage in this country gives people just over €400 a week. Does the Tánaiste honestly believe that is adequate to meet the cost of living? That is a joke. Maybe he is going to surprise me and say the minimum wage is going to be increased to €12.90, the living wage, or, even better, the rate we are proposing - €15, but I know he is not going to say that or do that. At the same time, the Tánaiste has nothing to say about the profiteering of the landlords or the energy companies. There is no response on that point. He does not have a problem with it. Why does the Tánaiste not focus on that? How is it acceptable that energy companies are seeing major increases in profits and landlords are making stratospheric profits on the backs of the heating and housing misery of ordinary people? Why does the Tánaiste refuse to act? The French have just brought in new rent controls with maximum prices on rent. The Government could do the same. Why does it not do that? It does not because it would affect the profits of landlords. Why will the Government not use the powers it has under the consumer Act to control the price of heating and energy?

The Tánaiste

The Deputy mentioned companies like BP and Shell.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

And the ESB and Energia.

The Tánaiste

BP and Shell are international companies. They are not companies that are based here and they are not companies that are, in the round, taxed here. It does show this is an international problem. The main driver of inflation is the rise in gas and oil prices, which is affecting us here, and that drives up the cost of other things too. The main drivers are international. That is the underlying cause.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

How come the ESB is making such large profits?

The Tánaiste

We have to treat the symptoms of that by helping people with their family budgets.

I do not believe the ESB should make bumper profits this year and we have a mechanism for dealing with that. The ESB is a State-owned company. It pays us a substantial dividend every year. We can take a larger dividend. It is not the case that it can just run up huge profits and put them in a bank account somewhere. We are the shareholder. We take a substantial dividend from the ESB. If it runs up huge profits this year, we can take a bigger dividend and use that to help pay for some of the measures we are announcing today.

Deputy Cathal Berry

I wish the Tánaiste good afternoon. My questions will be focused on the situation in Ukraine and more specifically how it relates to the situation in Ireland. I think every Deputy will recall the dying days of the Celtic tiger, when our financial regulators were utterly clueless about the risks emerging on the horizon and provided absolutely no early warning whatsoever. Even as the storm was breaking our financial regulators were oblivious to the risk. They were telling us there was nothing to see here and that everything was fine. However, in the end, there was something to see. Every Deputy knows we have been living with the legacy of that disaster every day since then.

There is also something to see in Ukraine at the moment. The consensus assessment is there is an 80% likelihood of hostilities breaking out before the end of the month, once the Chinese Olympics finish on 20 February. While we wish the diplomats well and are hoping for a diplomatic outcome, we should always bear in mind that the Japanese used bogus negotiations right up to the day of the Pearl Harbor attack in the 1940s. It was the same story with the Germans before their invasion of Poland. There is, therefore, a risk that these negotiations are not being conducted in good faith and we should be prepared accordingly. I fully accept, as I think all Deputies do, that we have very little control of geopolitical events. When the tectonic plates start moving, we have very little control. However, we have much more control over how we respond and how we prepare.

I would be grateful if the Tánaiste would update the House on the continuous planning that has been taking place at Government level. I ask that he specifically focus on whether any financial provision has been made to assist our fellow EU countries that border Ukraine in the event of a major humanitarian crisis breaking out. Do we have any spare capacity in our refugee system to accept new refugees? From a cybersecurity point of view, have we hardened or ruggedised our critical national infrastructure such as the national grid, the health service and the public transport system? If they go down, the poorest people will suffer the most. How does the Tánaiste assess the safety of our embassy staff in Kyiv? Do we have any measures in place to safeguard our energy security if things go wrong and conflict breaks out? Energy security is going to be a major issue because of the control the Russians have over our gas.

To summarise, having this conversation is not alarmist in any shape or form. These are normal, prudent, sensible and responsible discussions. They are happening all over Europe and need to happen here as well. I would be grateful if the Tánaiste would update the House accordingly.

The Tánaiste

I thank the Deputy. The Government continues to conduct appropriate contingency planning that considers a number of perspectives, including consular support for citizens. At the same time it is important to remember that intensive international efforts to secure a negotiated diplomatic resolution to the tensions are ongoing. At the moment there are no plans to withdraw staff or evacuate our embassy in Kyiv. The Department of Foreign Affairs will continue to keep the security situation under review in line with its procedures on ensuring the security and safety of our staff there. On 22 January the Department updated its travel advice for Ukraine and advised that people should avoid non-essential travel to the country. We will be continuing to keep this advice under review. We also continue to advise that all Irish citizens in Ukraine should register with the Irish Embassy in Kyiv so they can receive consular assistance and be evacuated from the country should the need arise.

I state once again that the Government strongly supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine. We believe that should be respected. We also respect and support the right of the people of Ukraine to determine their own affairs and their right of sovereignty. They have the right to decide they wish to join the European Union or to decide they wish to join NATO. Those should always be decisions for the elected Ukrainian Government and not to be determined by others or imposed on it by anyone else.

At present we have made no provision for financial aid to neighbouring countries but we absolutely acknowledge that were there to be a conflict, as well as loss of human life, there would likely be significant refugee flows into Romania and Poland in particular. In that scenario we anticipate the EU solidarity clause would be triggered and we would be required, but also willing and happy, to assist Romania and Poland in any way we can should that situation arise. That would also involve, under European arrangements, being willing to take a number of refugees from Ukraine, which we would be willing to do. However, all efforts at the moment are aimed at avoiding such a scenario because we know a land war between Russia and Ukraine would result in tens of thousands of deaths and probably hundreds of thousands of people being internally displaced or fleeing to Romania and Poland. Nobody wants that situation to arise so diplomatic efforts are under way to avoid conflict in the region. Crucially, that cannot mean sacrificing the sovereignty and autonomy of Ukraine and the right of its people and democratically elected Government to determine their own affairs.

Deputy Cathal Berry

I thank the Tánaiste for his reply. It is semi-reassuring to know contingency planning has at least commenced. We have a tradition in this House, and perhaps in this country and beyond, of retrospective analysis. We always look back at an event and say we should have done more of this or less of that. Perhaps this is one time we can get ahead of the event and do some proper planning. It would prevent any emergency debates or any poor decision-making in the middle of the night. My advice would be to use the next ten days or fortnight as best as possible to put a proper plan in place. While we certainly hope for the best, we should also be prepared for the worst. I wish the Tánaiste and Government well with their preparations.

Deputy Leo Varadkar

I thank the Deputy. It is prescient and appropriate to raise this issue in the House because if Russia invades Ukraine this will become a very big issue for Ireland and indeed for the EU. As I said, contingency planning is under way for different scenarios but perhaps we need to upgrade or scale up the kind of contingency planning we are doing. The Deputy makes a very valid point in that regard. Obviously, the first response is to protect our citizens in Ukraine and to ensure they are safe and can get out if they need to. The second is a wider humanitarian response to help people who may be displaced or have to flee. The third of course relates to issues around energy supplies. We do not get much gas from Russia or Ukraine but it would still have a knock-on effect. There is also the possibility of cyberattacks and disruption of the EU should a conflict emerge.