Government accused of 'dressing up the country for visiting leaders' amid cost-of-living crisis

Labour and the Social Democrats also slated Tánaiste Simon Harris’s comments on the dole 'not being a way of life'

Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty accused the Government of portraying a false picture of Ireland for European leaders, while Irish people are struggling to pay the bills. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA

The Government has been accused of “dressing up the country for visiting leaders and pretending all is well” while people in Ireland continue to grapple with the rising cost of living.

Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty said the Government was “staging a glossy showcase of Ireland” at a time when people have “unpaid bills on the table”.

More than 50 world leaders were in Dublin on Thursday to attend the European Political Community (EPC) meeting at the Convention Centre. The 27 EU leaders will meet for an informal European Council meeting on Friday.

Dignitaries from across the world who were in Dublin for the meeting included British prime minister Andy Burnham, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Business continued as normal in Leinster House, where enterprise minister Peter Burke deputised for Tánaiste Simon Harris at Leaders’ Questions.

Mr Doherty accused the Government of portraying a false picture of Ireland for European leaders, while Irish people are struggling to pay the bills. He said the Government was “rolling out the red carpet for European leaders, staging a glossy showcase of Ireland as a modern, progressive, and prosperous nation”, when “the people you govern are not living in that showcase”.

“[From January] tolls are going to go up, public transport going to go up, diesel going to go up, petrol going to go up, another bill for just going to work,” he said.

“The cost of home heat oil has nearly doubled in a year. In a real home, that means parents staring at an emptying tank. It means knowing the refill may cost more than the family has. It means turning down the heat, putting another jumper on a child, hoping that the cold will pass.

It means deciding whether to spend scarce money on heat or whether to save it for food.

Mr Doherty called on the Government to remove carbon tax on home heating oil, introduce energy credits, and help people with the cost of groceries.

Mr Burke said Sinn Féin unveiled several initiatives as part of its alternative budget, but questioned, “Who pays, and what are the consequences?” 

“Government cannot eliminate the whole cost of living,” he said. “To suggest that is dishonest. What we can do is absorb the shock, and that's what Government is trying to do, trying to tackle the structural costs that drive inflation, but also absorb the shock for families.”

Labour and the Social Democrats, meanwhile, slated Tánaiste Simon Harris’s comments on the dole “not being a way of life”, with Ged Nash accusing him of the “worst kind of divisive dog-whistling designed to distract from your own Government's failures”.

Social Democrats TD Eoin Hayes accused Mr Harris of “demonising a small group of vulnerable people”.

• Louise Burne, political correspondent