Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE GOVERNMENT WILL not wait until October’s Budget to take action against the rising cost of living, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has confirmed.
His comments come a day after he said the Government will have to look at excise duty on petrol and diesel.
Speaking in Mayo this morning, Varadkar said the cost of living was rising even before the war in Ukraine, and now it has only gotten worse.
Senior ministers met yesterday to discuss the situation in Ukraine, Ireland’s humanitarian response and also the impacts sanctions could have domestically.
Ministers agreed that “innovative responses” would be needed to deal with issues like the rising costs of fuel and energy, as well as possible issues with supply chains.
When asked when the Government would introduce measures to cushion the blow for households and business, Varadkar said it would be before October’s Budget.
“I think I’ve indicated that people won’t have to wait until the budget. But people will have to wait until we have the European Commission paper done on this. Because whatever we do to help people and help businesses with the cost of fuel, and we know we need to do that, we need to do it in concert with other European governments. So that’s going to take a couple of weeks,” he said.
The EU is currently working on a white paper on measures that member states can take to help ease the rising costs in energy.
Varadkar said the conflict will cause energy prices to go higher, and stay higher for longer.
“We had a good discussion about that among ministers yesterday. And we’re going to examine ways in which we can respond. We’re not going to do anything immediately. We want to wait for the European Commission paper on this before we make a decision,” he said.
He added that there can be no doubt that rising costs “is affecting everyone”.
“Obviously, for motorists they are seeing the increase in petrol and diesel. Over the last couple of months for householders, they are seeing the increase in home heating oil and gas electricity bills, and also for business as well. Business have the advantage of being able to reclaim VAT, but obviously that’s not the case when it comes to excise for example. So we’ll have to think about that in the next couple of weeks,” said Varadkar.
“In terms of the economic effects of the war in Ukraine, it’s just very difficult to predict because nobody knows how long it’s going to go on for, for example, and nobody knows for sure how it’s going to end and what the extent of the effects on supply chains, on energy, on refugees, are going to be,” he said.
While he said the Irish economy bounced back as the pandemic restrictions were eased, “this is going to be different”, he said.
“And it’s just not possible at the moment to predict what the impact will be on our economy. We’ll manage it as best we can, as we always have in the past. Thankfully, public finances are in a reasonably good state and we’ve nearly 2.5 million people at work in Ireland. So we have some capacity to intervene, but it’s not an unlimited capacity,” he added.
Speaking to reporters this afternoon, the Taoiseach said ministers went through a “whole range of areas that will be impacted as a result of this war” such as energy prices, the economic situation, trade, cybersecurity, and the humanitarian aspects.
The Government is very aware that the energy issue is “very pressing”.
“Key ministers in that area will work in terms of devising a sustainable model and approach to dealing with that issue, because it’s not just this week, it’s something we’ve got to work through for the medium term as to how we deal with this exponential growth in the price of fuel and the price of gas, which has really just risen to extraordinary heights as we emerge from Covid,” he said.
Fuel, energy security and the food issue in terms of the wider issue across Europe, will be impacted by the war, he said.
“Given the amount of grain exported by Ukraine and Russia is enormous,” he added, stating “these are very real impacts that would happen”.
“Every single government department is now working on scenario planning, potential impacts, how can we respond to those,” said the Taoiseach.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
And don’t be leaving rubbish and empty boxes at the bottle banks ye Muppets
Maybe if card board and paper recycling bins were placed beside the bottle banks instead of a usual little tiny bin it wouldn’t be a problem.
Unsupervised Cardboard compactors at bottle banks would be impractical and people would throw domestic waste into them..
Are there still people out there who do NOT recycle?
Re-cy-cling? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that term you adorable little ragamuffin.
I live in an apartment block. There is a ‘rubbish’ room in the basement car park. There are large green bins and large black bins, practically side by side. There’s another one for glass. Posters everywhere make it crystal clear what items should go in what bin yet I always see cardboard, plastic bottles, glass etc in the black bin. Everytime. It’s free and it couldn’t be easier yet many of my neighbours just cannot be bothered…..
The exact same in my apartment block, I even sometimes find myself moving plastic and cardboard from the normal bins to the recycling ones, like an absolute eejit. I don’t know if it’s because some of the residents come from countries that don’t have organised recycling facilities, or if people are just being lazy baxtards, maybe I should get a sash and observe my neighbours, but it’s very cold down there this time of year.
Lol, love it. Reminds me of Marino church. A few more men in sashes and we’ll get the place sorted in no time.
Haha yes I have also moved the odd piece from black to green. And yes, I too suspect it’s because many of the residents hail from places where recycling isn’t common. Nevertheless, a trained chimp could understand the instructions on the posters that are, again, everywhere in the building so I can only put it down to sheer indifference.
Dublin, yes. Travellers, no. It’s not dirty, messy, ‘this is why everyone hates us’ littering. The bins are being used. Just not correctly.
I put my empty bottles in the black bin . If I have to pay to have them collected, bottlbanks and recycling are a non runner, not wasting time, effort, petrol so government can meet recycling targets and look good in europe.
Ignorant, lazy, self-serving pig. What an attitude to be proud of, “it’s someone else’s problem.”
I feck them into the river
Johns right. There’s no incentive to promote recycling in this country. It costs the consumer more to be green. The likes of Germany pay 10cent a bottle. And you bring it back to the supermarket. This country is a joke when it comes to recycling. You get charged to dispose of food waste which is composted down bagged and then sold back to you. Typical irish ways. Charged twice.
Oh , the tree huggers are after me. Well I m off to harpoon a whale, while wearing my fur farmed coat and driving my 5 litre hummer.
I have seen people throw their refuse bags into the river in the town I live. Dirty lazy ignorant people. Most of the waste could have been recycled. The most common thing found are overflowing refuse bags of cheap imported lager cans. In most cases they are left only a short distance from recycling banks. Pure laziness!
But you pay for your black bin so you’re not saving money.
Your paying anyway
Yea i live near a river too and find it very convenient
Some people do not have the brains to crush a can or cardboard box and prefer instead to leave the bin overflowing. You can take a donkey to water etc. etc.
I didn’t know you could put glass in the black bin. No more trips to the bottle bank then. Thanks.
The environment would be a good incentive, and the fact that if you do a weekly shop, at a shopping centre, or infact any stretch of retail, there will be most likely recycling bins there.
Lazy and selfish mentality.
As recyclers for many years we dont wait for the binmen to shiw up
Always makes me laugh when people get wound up by comments made by the likes of mocca Mack.
Don’t feed into people like macca mock they have nothing for doing but only trying to get a reaction from people. Ignore their stupid comments and they will go away.
Some years ago I returned to Ireland and climbed Bray Head….it was like a rubbish tip….I did hear later that the community did something about it….I do hope that Ireland has improved in caring for the environment… It is not good to be remembered as environmentally irresponsible?
Macca mock even
The glass that you all lovingly sort and pack all ends up in one big truck and is sent over the border. We have no glass making left remember? As folks are mostly too idle to recycle properly all rubbish should be dumped in the same bin and mechanically sorted which would make more sense financially and the recovered material used as is done elsewhere such as mixing glass and old tyres to make road surfaces.
You tell us where you would get a mechanical sorter which could separate curry leftovers from paper.
@Alan Lawlor, familiarise yourself with the subject and drop back later.
If your green bin is full and u still have stuff to recycle put them in white plastic bags so that the bin men can see that they are recyclable we try to recycle everything and our bin is always full and with the bags the drivers have no problem collecting them!!
I am also amazed by the number of people who think that recycling somehow discharges all responsibility we have as humans to preserve conditions on earth conducive to continued life on earth! The motto is: reduce, re-use, recycle – in that order!!! So in Germany when people return glass bottles for money, it is hopefully for re-use rather than recycling. We used to have the same here…
have your say