Jack Chambers

He was canvassing in Galway West as well.

And, you know, people are positive about him as leader of our country, as leader of our party and as Taoiseach of our country, someone who is absolutely focused on getting things done, listening to people and ensuring that we're a government that delivers for people.

I think there's sometimes overly simplistic analysis in connecting his, I think, positive work as Taoiseach with different dynamics that occur within by-elections.

But even your explanation... I don't think that's... I don't think it's a fair assessment just to connect it to him.

He's consistently across opinion polling shown himself to be one of the most popular leaders in the country.

Well, I think you're picking one constituency where we have been consistently weak versus the huge rebuilding work that Neil Martin did when he took over the party in 2011, where we had one seat in Dublin.

We now have 10.

So, you know, he is someone who's rebuilt the party, rebuilt the organisation, strengthened our grassroots, won the local elections on successive occasions.

You know, we're the biggest party in the Dáil, biggest party in the Seánad.

And that's because of his leadership, his direction, his exceptionally hard work as someone who is trying to get things done as Taoiseach across critical areas that matter to people.

Well, what we're trying to do in the context of the budget is how do we better respond to the challenges people have?

But I think that it's within the overall parameters that we've set.

So inflation is about 3% this year.

I think it's better using the overall budget package to give people something back when it comes to, say, a personal tax package, putting money back into people's pockets and ensuring that a personal tax package is a central part of Budget 2027.

I think there's shared agreement across government that we need to reward work, we need to reward workers, but we have to balance that against the need to protect infrastructure investment and investment in housing.

So I think...

you know, the public more generally understand that it is about, it's a careful balancing act about how much we put into day-to-day expenditure against protecting the infrastructure investments which will grow our economy and help build the homes and the infrastructure we need.

There will absolutely be a personal tax package.

It's a priority for Fianna Fáil in this budget.

We had a good engagement across our parliamentary party where, you know, I know many workers going to work this morning, you know,