David Cullinan

Look what's happening on the streets.

Look what's happening in terms of public sentiment.

It is clear as day that public sentiment is not with this government.

They are damaged.

They are wounded.

The...

Comments yesterday by Michael Healy-Ray were quite pointed.

He pointed the finger at the head of government, at Micheál Martin, and he made the point that they're not listening.

That's exactly what we have been saying over the last while.

And if the government had acted a number of weeks ago, I don't think we would be in the situation where we had protests, blockades.

Well, you see, I think there's kind of very glib questions about how much everything costs being put to people.

It is, and we have costed our proposals, which would cost €100 million a month above what the government has done.

But we have to make sure that we're protecting people because we're talking about people's livelihoods.

I represent people, David, who don't know which bill to pay.

They're faced with rising grocery costs, rising food costs, rising insurance costs, rents, now rising fuel costs.

We have 350,000 people who can't afford to pay their electricity bills.

These are real people who are hurting at the moment.

We also, of course, saw small contractors, hauliers, farmers, small business people.

They are to the pin of their collar.

They're not interested in a Punch and Judy show.