Taoiseach pledges energy support for families and businesses in budget

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has pledged that there will be help for businesses and householders with energy bills in the budget.

“The basic principle is that there will be help for households and businesses with energy costs, it will be announced in the Budget. It’s being done because we don’t believe energy prices will have fallen fast enough by then,” he said.

He also said reducing the cost of childcare and alleviating child poverty would be “a very strong theme in the budget”.

Speaking to journalists at Government Buildings after the final Cabinet meeting before the summer break, Mr Varadkar put strong emphasis on supports for business in the Budget, saying that small businesses in particular were facing an array of cost increases including increases to the minimum wage, high energy costs, more sick day provision and autoenrollment of workers in pensions schemes. “And I think they’re going to need some help with that,” he said.

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But he also outlined plans for a range of other giveaways in the Budget.

He said that there would be more help for people with energy bills, adding that it was “pretty obvious that people will need help” with bills during the winter.

The summer economic statement published by the Government earlier this month suggested that there would be an additional €6.4 billion in spending in the Budget, with €1.1 billion of that to go on adjusting tax bands and credits to reduce the amount of tax people would otherwise pay.

But ministers freely acknowledge that there will be an additional multibillion package of “one-off” spending measures which will assist people with the cost of living. These are expected to include a repeat of last year’s energy credits and one-off welfare payments.