Cost of Living Woes: Milk Pricier Than Petrol in Ireland

Mary Lou McDonald returns to the attack on the soaring cost of living. The State has a surplus of €8bn but is still proposing to throw ordinary working families when it comes to the Budget, Sinn Féin has told the Taoiseach.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said she would raise the cost of living with the Taoiseach 'every single day I have to' until action was taken. 'You refuse to hear. You have the resources to intervene and make a difference,' she said, accusing the Government of being more interested in the 'high rollers and big bankers' than people struggling to make ends meet.

She mocked Micheál Martin's remark on Tuesday that prices are at 'a relatively elevated level' – saying they were through the roof. 'A litre of milk now costs more than a litre of petrol,' she said.

The Taoiseach said however that the claim that the Government didn't get it was 'wholly wrong'. He said the State was facing a very difficult situation globally, and Ms McDonald seemed 'oblivious' to the threat of tariffs and trade disruptions. 'We're going to transform infrastructure in this country,' Mr Martin said, adding that Ireland was now back to its pre-famine population and had to expand and grow its capacity. 'There are limits to what any Government can do, and you are the Opposition without any limits,' he said.

Ms McDonald has repeatedly demanded a continued cost of living package in the Budget, as happened in recent years -- which the Government is ruling out on grounds of economic prudence. She cited an Irish League of Credit Unions report on the high cost to parents of back-to-school provision, which follows a raft of similar reports, she said. The Sinn Féin leader read out a letter, with one woman in a household where two people are working, who said she would be hungry and in the dark, were it not for regular loans from her mother. Others said the monthly groceries cost of €1,000 was 'beyond a joke', with €9 for a small bottle of shampoo. One woman named Joanne had asked 'Why are people going out to work at all?'

Mr Martin spoke again, however, of future investment in energy, roads, and water - and promised there would be measures in the Budget 'for those most in need'. He said Sinn Féin was promising universal benefits, which would also benefit high rollers and big bankers, repeating that inflation had peaked after Covid-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But Ireland's inflation rate would be among the lowest in the EU this year, he said, where Governments had not provided the cost of living cushioning seen in Ireland. He referred to the free school book scheme, 'which you in Sinn Féin never mention'. It is being extended to all students in post-primary schools, while all primary schools will be eligible for free hot school meals from September.