Before we proceed to Leaders' Questions, I have been asked by Deputy Catherine Murphy to extend a welcome to relatives of the Stoneybatter rebels who fought in the 1916 Rising in the Four Courts area and who also took part in the War of Independence, so hello to Jimmy Stephenson, David Kilmartin, Audrey Flanagan, Una O'Carroll, David Lawlor, John Kirwan and Finbarr O'Carroll, son of the late Maureen O'Carroll, who graced this Chamber for the constituency of Dublin North-Central from 1954 to 1957. They are all very welcome. Give them a round of applause.
Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Members applauded.
It has never been more expensive or stressful to be a renter than under this Government. For three long years, rents have risen to levels never thought possible. The latest Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, report shows rents rising last year by almost 7%. Since the Government took office, rents have increased by a staggering 23%. This is €3,500 more per year for the average new renter. Indeed, in the Minister's county of Donegal, rents have skyrocketed by an astonishing 34% since he became Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. This is almost €3,000 more per year in rent for a new renter in his constituency. In Dublin last year, the rent hike is costing an average €4,500 more per year for an average new renter. New rents in the capital are now so high that, on average, it costs €25,000 per year just to rent. How on earth does the Government expect the majority of working people to pay that?
The latest RTB report shows that things are going from bad to worse. What is happening in the private rental sector is a disaster. On the Government's watch, rents are not just unaffordable, they are out of control. Last week, Threshold published its important Generation Rent report. It shows that almost half of surveyed renters feel insecure, more than half of tenants are paying unaffordable rents and, quite worryingly, 37% of renters surveyed in rent pressure zones have been hit with rent hikes above the 2% cap. One woman interviewed by Threshold told it, "Bills and rent cost 88% of my salary. Before food." Another renting parent told Threshold, "The cost of living is gone through the roof. I am scared to have the radiator on for too many hours." Sarah Brett, a renter who was forced to move back in with her parents because of the failure of her landlord to tackle damp and mould, told Threshold that "the power imbalance between landlord and tenant makes you feel like a 2nd class citizen. This is your home but you can't really make it a home."
What has been the response of the often absent Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy O'Brien, to this crisis in the private rental sector? He has, and I kid you not, launched an online survey asking, among other people, renters what they think of the mess created by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. Renters desperately need a break. They need an emergency ban on rent increases for three years, a full month's rent back in their pockets, real security of tenure and for the Government to massively increase the supply of genuinely affordable homes to rent or buy. In light of the latest RTB report and the skyrocketing level of rents for new renters, will the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine please tell us what the Government is going to do now to give these renters a break?
I thank the Deputy for raising this very important issue because housing - the need for people to be able to own their home and the need for people to have affordable access to rental homes - is the number one issue for the Government. This is why the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and the Government have introduced the Housing for All strategy, which puts in place a very radical set of policies aimed at tackling the core factor driving all of the housing challenges we face, namely, lack of supply. It is not very long ago that the total number of new housing units being built in the country each year was 7,000 to 8,000 per year. Last year, using Housing for All and the policy levers and supports put in place, the Government delivered 30,000 new housing units in the country, which was a 45% increase on the previous year. Unfortunately, it is not possible to solve this problem in a week, in a month or overnight because the key issue is supply, but this Government is doing everything and anything it can to build and drive momentum to ensure new supply and new houses and to work to support people in the rental sector.
On the rental sector, we have taken a number of measures to support tenants. We have capped rent increases in rental pressure zones so they must be no more than 2% per annum, and we have extended rental pressure zones to 2024. Budget 2023 put money back in renters' pockets by reintroducing a tax credit for renters of €500 per renter in 2022 and another €500 credit in 2023. We have also legislated for tenancies of unlimited duration and restricted the level of upfront payments required of tenants, while in the meantime doing everything we can to tackle the core issue, which is supply.
Many of those renting want to purchase their home but, because of the increasing cost of rents, are unable to get the deposit together to be able to do that. This Government has introduced the help-to-buy scheme, which provides a young person or a young couple with the opportunity for the first time in living memory to be able to apply through the Revenue Commissioners to be able to get up to €30,000 to put towards a deposit if they have been working over recent years. It allows them to get back the tax they have already paid so they can put it towards their deposit.
Another support is the first home scheme. In cases where a young person or couple are unable to get a mortgage for the full purchase price of the property, the Government will go shared equity with the person or couple up to 30% per year. Again, this is to help people to be able to purchase a home and to provide support in terms of the supply chain. Regarding vacant or derelict properties in cities, towns and the countryside, somebody can apply for a €50,000 grant if a property has been vacant for a year or a €70,000 grant if a property is derelict.
These supports I have outlined are not supported by Deputy Ó Broin or his party. Sinn Féin's alternative budget last year would have seen those measures abolished but they are really important when it comes to providing support for those renting to allow them to get the deposit together to be able to buy their home and to drive supply. This Government is doing anything and everything it can to boost and drive supply. There was a 45% increase in new developments last year and, alongside that, significant support for renters as well.
The Minister said you cannot solve this problem in a week, in a month or overnight. Indeed you cannot, but his party has been propping up Fine Gael for seven years, and Fine Gael has been in government for 11 years. How long do you need to tackle this crisis? Not only is the Government failing renters, but the Minister stands here and gaslights them, because none of those policies he outlined are working. That is why rents are rising, renters feel more insecure, we have rising levels of people from the private rental sector presenting as homeless and the private rental sector is shrinking. These are all the consequences of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael policies over a decade or more that are, unfortunately, now propped up.
What renters actually need is a Government that will cut rents and build genuinely affordable homes. It is interesting the Minister did not tell us how many genuinely affordable homes to rent or buy were delivered by the Government last year. It was less than 1,000, which is a quarter of what the Government promised and that in itself was nowhere near what is required.
The Government cannot blame time and it cannot blame the Opposition. The responsibility for the crisis in the rental sector and sky-high rents lies with the Government. My question is very simple. It is the same one the Minister did not answer the last time. What will the Government do now to help renters with skyrocketing rents?
I am afraid if they are looking to Deputy Ó Broin for solutions, they will be looking very hard indeed. I have outlined some of the key supports the Government has in place through Housing for All. I have mentioned the help-to-buy scheme, which provides up to €30,000 for a deposit. The First Home scheme provides up to 30% equity. We also have the vacant and derelict property grants. Sinn Féin would get rid of all those supports if it were in government.
Because they push up house prices and make it more difficult for people to buy.
If they are looking to Sinn Féin's capacity to deliver, they should look to Northern Ireland, just a couple of miles from where I live-----
What about renters?
Please-----
-----where it recently had the Minister for housing and Minister for Finance. In the last year for which Sinn Féin had those Ministries for the full year, house prices in Northern Ireland increased by £18,000.
Distract and deflect. What about renters in this State?
Sinn Féin does not have any magic------
Distract and deflect.
Please let the Minister answer.
Sinn Féin does not have any magic solutions here. The solution here is more supply in every way we can deliver it. Last year we increased the supply, providing 30,000 new housing units, a 45% increase on the previous year. We will continue to build on that momentum in every way we possibly can.
Rents will rise. House prices will rise. Homelessness will rise.
Please-----
That is what we get when Fianna Fáil is in government.
There is no time here for strategic heckling.
Today I want to talk about Ivy. Ivy was born with cerebral palsy and also suffers from hip dysplasia and neuromuscular scoliosis. In 2016, when she was 13, Ivy was told she would need spinal fusion surgery at Temple Street. At that point the curvature on her spine was 30 degrees. Years passed but there was no surgery. As the curve in her spine increased, Ivy endured excruciating pain and discomfort. Unlike other teenagers, she was unable to meet her friends and socialise. By 2019, her deteriorating health meant she was able to attend school for only one day a week. On occasion her condition was so bad she was unable to breathe. The Minister should think about that for a moment. A child in this country was waiting so long for surgery, she was left in horrific pain, denied an education and on occasion was unable to breathe. Imagine being the parent of that child, watching her suffer for years and feeling utterly helpless and utterly hopeless.
In Ivy's case it was 2021 before she finally got her surgery. By then the curve in her spine had increased from 30 degrees to more than 135 degrees. The Ombudsman for Children has today released a damning report about Ivy's care, detailing the delay in treatment and lack of communication from the hospital. When I read the report, I was struck that Ivy, despite all the trauma and pain she endured, was thinking of others. She expressed her gratitude and appreciation for the medical staff at the hospital. She said she knew they had a difficult job and are finding it hard to fulfil their responsibilities to children and young adults like her.
Desperately sick children and their families are being failed, not because of medical teams but because of a lack of resources. In 2016, we first heard promises from the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, that no child with scoliosis would wait longer than four months for treatment. That promise was never kept. Ivy waited for five years. As of May, 309 children were waiting for scoliosis treatment. Alarmingly, we learned earlier this month that complex spinal surgeries for children with spina bifida at Temple Street have been paused since last year.
I have a number of questions. When did the pause in surgeries at Temple Street commence? How long will surgeries be suspended for? How many children are impacted by this? How long have those children been waiting for surgery? When will the fifth operating theatre at Temple Street, which was supposed to be completed last year, be ready? When will the commitment to provide scoliosis treatment within four months actually be kept?
I thank Deputy Cairns for raising this. The experience of Ivy is harrowing and absolutely unacceptable. We, in government, want to work to ensure that is not the experience of children in this country. Last year, the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, approved an ambitious plan from Children's Health Ireland, CHI, to reduce the number of children awaiting spinal orthopaedic procedures for scoliosis or spina bifida by year end. As part of that, €90 million in current and capital funding was allocated to implement the plan. We made progress over the course of last year. As of the end of the year, 509 scoliosis procedures had been carried out compared with 380 for the same period in the year before, a 34% increase, and an increase of 47% compared with the previous year. Cappagh hospital completed 549 non-complex orthopaedic surgeries and 68 surgeries for spina bifida patients transferred from CHI, exceeding the target of 61 for the year.
Despite undertaking a record number of spinal procedures in 2022, corresponding reductions in the waiting lists were offset by increased demand and referrals compared with previous years, with a 30% increase in additions to the spinal surgery lists compared with 2021. The children's hospital believes this is due to the loss of additional capacity elsewhere and also the challenge of Covid-19 and its impact on demand. Temple Street has developed a plan for 2023 to continue to build on the work it did last year. At the end of May this year, Temple Street and also the Cappagh National Orthopaedic Hospital had completed 171 spinal procedures, which is 6% up on the same time last year. This represents 36% of the 2023 target activity. A total of 103 spinal procedures have also been undertaken in the same period, which is 43% of target activity.
The Deputy specifically raised the report of the Ombudsman for Children on Ivy. The children's hospital has advised that it fully accepts the report from the Ombudsman for Children and has developed an action plan to address these recommendations. That investigation centred on the case of Ivy, who was 18 at the time of the complaint in 2021 and had been waiting for a spinal fusion surgery for scoliosis for five years since 2016. It is unacceptable that any child would have that experience and that start to his or her life. The Government is taking the significant steps I have just outlined to try to address the situation. We will continue to build on that and ensure that people who have had this experience in their life and need the support of our health services can avail of those essential services and that the capacity to deliver them is significantly increased.
I thank the Minister for his reply. The problem is that children with scoliosis and their families have heard all these assurances previously. As I said, in 2016 they were told that no child would wait for more than four months for treatment. It is frankly disgusting that in a country as wealthy as Ireland we have children who are effectively being tortured like this. The curve in Ivy's spine increased by more than 100 degrees over the time she was waiting for surgery. It is almost impossible to imagine that kind of trauma being inflicted on a child and Ivy is not alone. There are children throughout the country who are in pain now waiting for surgery. They are missing school and missing out on socialising with their friends. Childhoods are fleeting and their childhoods are passing them by. They do not know when they will get surgery and they desperately need it now.
Scoliosis Ireland does very important work for these children and their families. They are worried not just about their physical health in these scenarios but also about their mental health. The mental health supports for these children who suffer terribly are almost non-existent. While I hope these assurances will be kept and all the things the Minister mentioned will be worked on, what assurances can he give parents that their children's mental health in the interim will be looked after? Will he ask the Minister for Health to take extra measures to provide mental health support?
I will certainly speak to the Minister for Health further on the issue of mental health supports. Like Deputy Cairns, I have met many young people who have been affected by scoliosis and know the massive challenge it presents in their lives. It is heartbreaking for all of us to see them waiting for the operation which would significantly change the course of their lives and provide them with this support and intervention they need.
As I outlined in my earlier answer, it is something the Government is taking seriously. It is ensuring the number of people working in this service and the number of operations that can be done every year are significantly increased. By the end of last year, 509 scoliosis procedures had been carried out nationally, which was a 34% increase on the year before. We need to see that momentum and capacity significantly increased so that other children do not have the experience Ivy has had. I acknowledge that many young children, teenagers and young adults in this country are waiting for this operation. It is the objective, mission and work of the Government to ensure they can get that operation as quickly as possible.
In my view, the stakes are very high in the RTÉ secret payments scandal, and the impact it has on public service broadcasting. I do not want to live in a world where the only sources of news and broadcasting are Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch, Mark Zuckerberg and big for-profit corporations. At least public service broadcasting is supposed to be not-for-profit and serving the public interest and can be held accountable. This scandal has seriously jeopardised the credibility of public service broadcasting.
I sat through that committee yesterday for four and a half hours. There was a lot of detail, and in some ways you can get lost in the detail, but it seems to me that a couple of issues absolutely stand out. The vast majority of ordinary workers in RTÉ were asked to endure a 15% pay cut, in many cases on top of poor contracts and conditions of employment, low pay for huge numbers of them, bogus self-employment, stand-by contracts and buyout contracts for actors and performers. However, one performer did not want to take the pay cut and a group of people, or one person - it seems to me it has to be a group - conspired to make sure that presenter did not take the pain. They then hatched a plot to conceal that fact from the public, who, let us remember, fund RTÉ and can go to jail if they do not pay their TV licence, from the Oireachtas, and from the vast majority of RTÉ workers who work in their-----
Deputy, you are traversing the boundaries.
Will you stop-----
You are making very personal accusations.
I did not mention any names.
You do not need to mention any names. Be careful, please.
In my view, a plot was hatched to conceal these secret payments from the public, from the Oireachtas and from the workers of RTÉ, to launder that payment through Renault, and to mislabel that payment as a consultancy when it was clearly not a consultancy. It was a payment to an individual, which a group of people or individuals wished to conceal from the public. The public was always going to pay because, as we were told yesterday, Renault insisted it be cost-neutral. In other words, the public had to pay for it. We need to know who hatched that plot and why.
The other thing that came screaming out to me was the idea of what was called "the talent". There is a group called "the talent" who are on staggering salaries, multiples of what ordinary workers got, and who are treated differently from the vast majority of workers, journalists, crew and so on, who are apparently not talent but who, in actuality, make RTÉ function and provide the journalism and broadcasting on which we depend and are treated shockingly.
Time is up.
This suggests the Government and this House have to be responsible for a massive culture shift to end that sort of obnoxious inequality-----
Time is up.
-----and to restore the credibility of public service broadcasting.
I agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett about the importance of public service broadcasting. It has been massively important in our history. It was particularly important, when we did not have other broadcast stations, to ensure there was a strong public service broadcasting operation in Ireland. RTÉ has provided a massive service to our citizens and country over many years. It is even more important now in a context in which it is much easier to broadcast and provide means of communication. Given the capacity for misinformation in that type of environment, it is important to have a trusted public service broadcaster.
In return for citizens paying a fee towards public service broadcasting we expect that they get fair, impartial and balanced coverage. What they also expect is transparency in the way the fees and money are paid to a public service broadcaster and are spent. The Minister, Deputy Martin, who has been strong in terms of Government response, indicated following the appearance at the committee that, in her view and that of the Government, what we saw yesterday and over the past couple of weeks was a shocking failure of governance at senior management level in RTÉ. We expect those attending the Committee of Public Accounts today to account responsibly for decisions taken which have seriously damaged the public's trust in public service broadcasting. The Minister has also asked for an accelerated timeline for the completion of the further Grant Thornton report into the understatement by RTÉ of the additional €120,000 for the period from 2017 to 2019. That is currently scheduled to take four weeks. The Minister has asked for it to be accelerated. The Grant Thornton report indicates that the €120,000 end-of-contract payment was not in fact paid. The new Grant Thornton report is seeking to establish why, if not paid, it was deducted from the published figures.
I also wish to clarify that it is my understanding the understatement only came to light during an internal review validating prior published earnings requested by the RTÉ board last week. Following the Minister's meeting with the RTÉ chair on 24 June, she announced she will commence an independent review of governance and culture at RTÉ. She has also provided an update to the Government of this review and it is intended the full details will be signed off by Cabinet in the coming days. Yesterday, the Minister also met with the RTÉ trade union group and Screen Producers Ireland to discuss the governance and culture review. She has been clear in her communications to the chair and deputy director general of RTÉ, the relevant members of the board and the executive board that all senior staff should attend and engage fully with Oireachtas committees examining these matters. It is important that the Committee of Public Accounts is having a further meeting on this today. We expect to see clear answers and transparency at that committee hearing.
Before Deputy Boyd Barrett proceeds, I am very conscious of the public anger about the current controversy, which is well reflected here by Members. I am also very conscious of the need to ensure we do not in any way abuse privilege here. Deputy, you have accused, as I read it, an identifiable individual of being involved, or perhaps being involved, in a conspiracy, that is, a deliberate attempt to distort the reality. You have accused that individual-----
I did not. The Ceann Comhairle clearly misheard me.
-----of being unwilling to take a pay cut. I do not know that we can stand over those statements.
They said it yesterday.
Can I have my time now?
Yes.
Yesterday, we were told there was significant pushback from that individual on the 15% pay cut. That is what we were told in the committee. Okay? The problem is that there were also secret payments made, and they were - I do not think there is any other way to describe it - laundered through Renault and then mislabelled as consultancy fees when they clearly were not. If we take what we heard yesterday at face value, and I am not saying we should, by the way, we need to get to the bottom of that. Is that true? We need answers and accountability to ensure this never happens again, and so people get to the truth.
It is important because at the back of it is this cultural problem.
There is a group called "the talent" who are treated in one way and then there are all the other workers in there who endured pay cuts and had to put up with pay freezes, bogus self-employment and buy-out contracts. I also heard mention of screen producers, which is another area that should be investigated. There is the €40 million which goes from RTÉ to the independent film production sector. Workers in that sector are saying that they are being abused and being robbed of proper conditions of employment.
The Deputy has made his point. Allow the Minister to reply, please.
In addition, there are issues relating to the copyright directive, and the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act is not being complied with. We need to address that culture.
The Government wants to see a strong future for public service broadcasting in this country. This is something we all put a very high value on. That is why it has been so disappointing to see what has emerged in the past couple of weeks in the context of the breach of trust, the lack of transparency in respect of salaries and the challenges and weaknesses with regard to governance. That is why the Government is taking this matter so seriously. The Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, is putting in place an independent external review of governance and culture at RTÉ in order to ensure that we can address the issues that exist. We expect RTÉ management and directors who are due to come before the committee today to be fully transparent with regard to answering the questions we have put to them. We need to ensure that those questions are answered, that trust is restored, that it is absolutely clear that there is a solid and strong governance structure in place into the future in RTÉ and that there is absolute transparency. Unfortunately, that has not been the case in the past couple of weeks. That is why we are taking this matter so seriously and taking steps to ensure that the matter is addressed.
The Government has given the go-ahead for an increase in the cost of tolls from Saturday next. Transport Infrastructure Ireland has stated that motorists are highly likely to suffer another increase in the cost of tolls within six months. That is absolutely outrageous. The Government is hiking up the cost of tolls during the most serious cost-of-living crisis in living memory. It is involved in highway robbery of citizens who are struggling just to get to work.
Commuters are already being hammered with increased prices in respect of cars and repair costs and are also suffering very significantly increased fuel prices due to excise and taxes at the moment. The Government hiked up the excise on petrol and diesel just three weeks ago. Now it plans to fleece commuters again in September and October with further excise increases. Nearly 50% of the cost of a litre of petrol or diesel is now tied up in taxes. According to the reply to a parliamentary question tabled by Aontú, the Government is now taking more in VAT on petrol and diesel than ever before. In the jaws of a cost-of-living crisis, the Government took in €2.3 billion on fuel taxes last year. These costs are a savage imposition on workers. In reality, they are a tax on work. They are a tax on the people who get up early and who keep this country going, Families who are struggling to put food on the table are now struggling to meet the cost of getting to work.
Tolls and fuel taxes are not uncontrolled costs. They are costs that fall within the Government's remit. It is incredible that the Government is actively increasing transportation inflation at the moment. The head of the Irish Road Haulage Association stated that the estimated changes just in the tolls could increase the burden by €500 per year for each truck. Ultimately, this cost is going to be borne by the consumer.
Someone travelling to work from my county of Meath could pass through six tolls on a return journey every day. At present, that person will pay approximately €2,000 a year on tolls. They do not have a rail option because the Government will not fund a rail line for the county. They do not have a direct bus service because the bus services are radial in nature and are notoriously unreliable.
The Government is claiming that tolls are out of its hands, but this is not true. The M50 is owned by the State. It takes in most of the tolls which are taken in annually. Those tolls are, in effect, a cash cow for the Government. They are a monument to maladministration on the part of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. These tolls have been paid for by the people over and over again. The M50 was built at a cost of €58 million. In the first year of operation, the company involved recouped all of its costs. The M50 was sold to the State for €600 million in 2007. In the first nine years, the Government took in €1.3 billion from tolls on the M50. The Government now has the neck to increase the tolls on the M50 again. I am calling on it to pause, to stop the increase in tolls across the country and to get rid of the M50 toll.
I thank Deputy Tóibín. There is no doubt that the past 18 months have been very challenging for people right across the country and in all walks of life, especially those who are on lower or fixed incomes. That is something the Government has been massively conscious of and to which we have responded very strongly-----
How can tolls be hiked up?
Please, Deputy, let the Minister respond.
-----in a way that I do not believe has been seen in any other country in Europe. The fact that we have been sensibly and effectively managing the economy has given us the platform, as has the situation with regard to our national finances, to be able to support people who are under great pressure at this time. Over the past year and a half, we have seen €12 billion, which equates to 4.5% of our national income, allocated to specific tax and expenditure measures to try to help households and businesses deal with rising costs. That is the wider backdrop to the past 18 months in the context of how the Government has worked to try to relieve the pressure that has undoubtedly been on our citizens over that period.
The Deputy specifically raised the issue of tolls. In December of last year, the Minister directed that officials in his Department would engage with Transport Infrastructure Ireland to develop options which might allow for the suspension of planned toll increases until the end of June this year.
That was too late.
Following this direction, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, with all eight public-private partnership, PPP, companies which operate the tolls, achieved agreement on the suspension of these increases for the first six months of this year. As the agreed six-month period will expire on 1 July, the revised toll prices will apply from that date. The setting of tolls is a statutory function for TII, although there are some procedural differences when it comes to the two public roads, namely, the M50 and the Dublin Port tunnel, and the eight PPP roads. There is no formal consultation or consultative role for the Minister when it comes to tolls. It is a matter for TII, which has a statutory function in this regard. The board proposed toll increases for 2023 on the M50 and agreed the proposed increases on the eight PPP routes as well. Overall, in the context of tolls, given that these roads are run mainly by means of PPPs, there are contractual obligations involved. Those obligations are linked to inflation, and that is the situation that obtains.
In a more general context - and I have outlined the delay in respect of the six-month period relating to the tolls - the Government is very cognisant of the pressures that have been on our people over the past 18 months, particularly last winter. This is something we will consider again in the budget and in advance of next winter. We have introduced measures to try to support people during that period in order to relieve the economic pressure on them.
Ireland has the highest cost of electricity in the whole of Europe. The per-unit price is double the average being charged in Europe at the moment. The Minister is not correct in saying that the Government has been active in significantly reducing the cost of energy. There is no contractual obligation on the Government in the context of the M50. The M50 is owned by the State. The truth is that these tolls are being used as an ideological stick to put people off the roads in the same way that the hikes in excise and VAT on petrol and diesel are being used strategically to reduce the demand for fuel in this country. The Government is putting the Green Party’s ideology and strategy ahead of the needs of people. People are currently maxed out on overdrafts and loans. They are going to moneylenders and are not able to pay for their gas. Some 600,000 people are in poverty. At the same time, the Government is allowing for significant increases in tolls on roads it owns and that the people have paid for over and over again. The Government could say stop. Will it do so?
I have outlined the contractual situation with regard to tolls.
What about the M50?
There are certain constraints within which we must operate.
The Government has been massively cognisant of the financial pressures on families during the past 18 months. That is why, in the context of those financial pressures, we have intervened to provide support by means of a range of measures to homeowners. In the budget we introduced last year, there was an autumn double payment, a double payment of child benefit-----
The Government took more in VAT and excise than that.
-----a €400 lump-sum payment for fuel allowance, a €500 lump-sum payment to families receiving working family payment and those in receipt of disability allowance, blind pension and invalidity pension and €200 specifically for those living alone. We moved to reduce childcare costs by 25% and public transport fares by 20% in general and by 50% for young people. I could go on. There are many more supports, all of which are necessary given the pressure the public was under. The Government has been working to try to support them during a difficult period.