THE COST-OF-living crisis once again dominated Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil today, with members of the opposition highlighting the economic pressure many of their constituents are feeling, particularly in the run-up to Christmas. 

Tánaiste and Finance Minister Simon Harris was in the hot seat on behalf of the government today and batted off stinging criticism from Sinn Féin’s finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty as a “misrepresentation of what the government is doing”. 

Doherty took issue with an interview Harris did with the Irish Daily Mail today, in which he pledged to “put money back in people’s pockets” as finance minister. 

In the interview, Harris was asked how he intends to carry out his new job and responded: 

“You can be assured that Prudent Paschal has been replaced in the Department of Finance by Simon, who will be sensible”.

Addressing him in the Dáil today as “Sensible Simon”, Doherty said his comments in the Daily Mail are “directly contradicted” by his “record of broken promises”.

He called on the Government to restore energy credits, scrap carbon tax hikes, abolish USC on the first €40,000 of income and abolish the means test for carers.

In response, Harris said:

“Well, you can debate the use of the word ‘sensible’, Pearse, but one thing’s for sure, no one will ever call you ‘Prudent Pearse’.

“Had we followed the economic plans of your party. God knows where we’d be.”

Harris also accused Doherty and Sinn Féin of being “hypocrites” for calling for lower college fees in the Republic of Ireland when they are higher in Northern Ireland, where Sinn Féin is in power.

“People see through it, and that’s why you are sitting over there rather than being in government because you’ve no credibility on this,” Harris said. 

“You say one thing here, and you do the exact opposite in Northern Ireland. Shame,” Harris said.

Responding on social media to Harris’s pledge to “put money back in people’s pockets”, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said she was “absolutely furious” after reading the interview. 

“After a year of broken election promises and a €9.4 billion budget that leaves workers worse off he trots out this nonsense and expects people to believe him,” she said. 

Elsewhere, Social Democrats and People Before Profit TDs also raised the issue of the cost-of-living crisis. 

Deputy leader of the Social Democrats, Cian O’Callaghan, asked Harris when a permanent cost of disability payment would be introduced and called on him to introduce an emergency winter payment for people with disabilities.

“There is cold fury in the disability community about this government’s treatment of them. Services are threadbare, waiting lists are endless, and now even the temporary cost of disability payment has been abolished.

“In the Daily Mail today, you promised to put money back in the pockets of people, yet with a stroke of a pen, you took €1,400 out of the pockets of disabled people,” O’Callaghan said. 

In response, Harris said disability services are a priority issue for this government but that the government has always been “very clear” that it was moving away from temporary measures.

He said work is ongoing in terms of developing a permanent cost of disability payment.

People Before Profit TD said there was “quite an incredible display of cognitive dissonance” coming from the Tánaiste. 

“I mean, you go to the media and you tell them you’re going to put money back in people’s pockets. Then you come in here and you’re asked, on behalf of disabled people who are crying out for this, you’re asked to put money back in their pockets [via] a winter emergency measure, a one-off payment, and you just bat it away,” he said. 

Elsewhere during Leaders’ Questions today, Labour TD Duncan Smith raised the shortage of garda stations across the country. 

Responding to this, Harris said the Minister for Justice had received approval this week for the Garda Sectoral Investment Plan, which will see an increase in the number of garda stations built in the future.