{"id":336041,"date":"2026-03-08T23:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T23:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/336041\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T23:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T23:42:09","slug":"government-open-to-providing-new-cost-of-living-supports-as-prices-rise-minister-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/336041\/","title":{"rendered":"Government open to providing new cost-of-living supports as prices rise, Minister says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Government is \u201copen\u201d to providing cost-of-living supports against the backdrop of \u201cunprecedented\u201d global turmoil that may lead to dramatic price rises beyond the energy sector, a Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> Minister has said. <\/p>\n

The Coalition has been criticised in recent days over its response<\/a> to a surge in motor fuel, gas and home-heating oil prices as a result of unrest in the Middle East following US<\/a>–Israeli<\/a> strikes on Iran<\/a> and related attacks on the Gulf region in response. <\/p>\n

Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne<\/a> told RT\u00c9\u2019s<\/a> The Week in Politics that \u201cit may well be that the Government will take action\u201d, saying it would \u201clook carefully at this\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cClearly prices have gone up. They may well go up dramatically again, and it won\u2019t just be fuel and electricity, it could be food supplies etc,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an extremely serious and probably unprecedented situation that we\u2019re facing. When you look at the impact of the closure of the Straits of Hormuz across all walks of life, across all the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The carbon tax<\/a> increases slated for this year would go ahead, he indicated, as the proceeds fund the retrofitting of homes and provision of the fuel allowance. <\/p>\n

He said the Coalition would \u201clook at this over the next week or so [and] see how things develop,\u201d adding it was \u201copen to examining supports we could give\u201d. <\/p>\n

However, he downplayed the prospect of a measure like a VAT cut, which he suggested would not benefit people directly \u2013 rather allowing retailers and wholesalers to \u201cpocket\u201d the difference in prices themselves. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government is entitled to have a few days to examine this, to see if this is temporary, it doesn\u2019t look like it,\u201d Byrne said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an unprecedented global situation, the likes of which we have never seen before, and the Government is entitled to see the extent of it [before acting].\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government is \u201copen\u201d to providing cost-of-living supports against the backdrop of \u201cunprecedented\u201d global turmoil that may lead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,121361,943,895,61,11829,60,3410,6085,73683,90],"class_list":["post-336041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-carbon-tax","tag-cost-of-living","tag-fianna-fail","tag-ie","tag-iran","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-rte","tag-thomas-byrne","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}