SPIRALLING PRICES OF everyday products are “biting hard” for ordinary working people, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said today. 

Speaking during Leaders’ Questions, she cited recent Central Statistics Office (CSO) data, which found that basic grocery products such as butter, cheese and potatoes have risen in price. 

“The price of a bag of potatoes has doubled. The price of other basic toiletries is absolutely sky high at this stage. And then rent goes up and up in the last year,” she said. 

McDonald said people have also seen their motor insurance go up by a 9% in 12 months, more than double the EU average. She said Irish people are also paying the highest electricity prices anywhere in Europe.

She urged the government to introduce cost-of-living measures to help households deal with rising prices and accused Taoiseach Micheál Martin of “sitting on his hands” while workers are struggling to pay bills.

The Taoiseach has previously ruled out any further cost-of-living package in October’s budget.

Martin said that in the next budget they would “do everything we can to make sure that we can reduce pressures on families and on children” through social protection measures and taxation.

He told the Dáil there was no government across the EU which had provided as much in cost-of-living supports as Ireland.

McDonald said the government seemed oblivious to the pressures that people are under.

“You seem content to sit on your hands and do nothing while workers and families barely get by. On the watch of your government, households are hit with soaring costs right across the board,” she said.

“Hard-working people being fleeced left, right and centre. Many have very little left at the end of the week, forced to decide which bill to pay, which one to leave, forced to cut back on the basics. And a Government proclaiming that it will not act, that it will not help.

“It is not lost on anyone that at the same time you rule out help for ordinary people, you had no problem whatsoever delivering big pay hikes for your raft of junior and super junior ministers,” she added.

The Taoiseach said the government has made €7.3bn available in temporary expenditure and €9.3bn in recurring expenditure to support household incomes.

He said that in recent years, the level of inflation had an impact on households and businesses.

The Taoiseach added: “Our agenda and objective in the budget when it comes in the autumn will be to provide within the social protection payment programme and in terms of taxation, to do what we can to alleviate the pressures on people.

“We have had an exceptional period and the response has been exceptional by any yardstick.”