Ireland: Inflation to cause consequences for years to come

Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, has warned that the rise in Inflation, which is forecast to rise to 8.5% over the following months, as well as the cost-of-living crisis, will cause nation-wide consequences for years to come. 

“There are lots of reasons as to why we’re seeing inflation roar across the world at the moment and lots of reasons why we’re seeing the cost of living rise.” stated the Deputy Prime Minister.

“That’s to do with monetary policy, it has to do with the pandemic and supply chains, it has to do with the war in Ukraine as well. While we do need to respond to the symptoms, which is price rises, that’s not the solution.”

“I don’t think we can come back every few weeks, with a new measure to offset a particular price increase. We need to see this for what it is, which is an international crisis, an increase in inflation that’s going to be with us for years more so than months.”

Speaking on Governmental plans to offset the cost of next month’s carbon tax increases on home heating oil and other fuels,which will see €1.50 a month to home heating oil cost and €1.40 to gas bills each month, Varadkar stated: “The money is ring fenced, it goes into the fuel allowance, it goes into green schemes for farmers, it goes into funding our retrofit programme.”

“But it will have an impact on people, and we’re very much aware of that as a government. Thirty euros might not sound like a lot of money but it is a lot of money if you don’t have and that of course comes on top of increases that have happened to date. So we are examining means as to how we might offset that, so that people are no worse off than they would be as a consequence of that increase. We’re working on that across government at the moment.”

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