Caitriona Redmond

Yeah, and I think this €2,000 cost per family that we're talking about here, I think it's really important to remember that there are people in middle to higher range salaries who can absorb it by dropping some of the non-essential purchases.

But the families who are on the lower income range, they're the families who can't adapt and adopt a €2,000 hit to their finances.

No, and I think that's very true, because when you're committed to rent and to mortgage, it's very difficult to adapt your budget to take into account for an additional 2000 euro per year.

Yes, and not just that then.

That standard of living for you changes, but there's also a knock-on impact on the smaller businesses.

So you'll see that knock-on impact on the likes of after-school services, classes, then you're talking about restaurants and hospitality industry.

The less money you have to spend in the community will have a knock-on effect on community jobs.

So there is a much wider picture here, but ultimately what you're talking about is the gap widening, the gap between the haves and the have-nots

is widening and those who don't have it have less again.

So the energy credits has an awful lot of merit, particularly when it's targeted at families who are on lower incomes.

So you're talking about taking a look at it from the family income supplement or that's the family payment system

You're talking about it from the qualified child increase for people who are on lower incomes.

But the other thing is, if we're talking about that particular climate change levy, that portion of 532 million that hasn't been paid out.

We also need to take a look at things like climate adaptation and mitigation, because down the line, when we have more flooding like we had in previous years,

then families are going to be even more hard pressed.

How are we going to pay for those families who have their houses flooded out, families who have been impacted by the likes of Storm Eoin?

These are also the things that that money needs to go towards spending.

Well, I think what we're actually missing is a huge chunk of vital information.

And that is the paucity or the really poor public transport links to an awful lot of these hospitals.

If the public transport links were better, then we wouldn't have people driving to the hospitals.