So is there one archetypical citizen where you'd say, when this budget comes through, their life will improve in this material way?

Yeah, it's a really good question.

And it's when I ask, it's when I kind of, it's when I picture in my own mind when I'm talking about the budget.

So if there's a family watching or listening, excuse me, to this program this morning, and that family is going out to work, I want to make sure that their take home pay as a result of the tax package benefits, if they're dropping the child to creche or to a childminder, I want to increase the assistance the government is giving them with the cost of childcare.

And if they're worried, as nearly every family is, about the cost of energy, I want to look at how we can help them somewhat, somewhat with the energy bills this year.

All of those things in the round, plus significant investment in public services and their kids' schools and the local hospital.

This is whether you get up early in the morning or whether you work late at night isn't the point.

Is she correct?

So what are you going to do?

So the issue I'm particularly worried about right now is home heating.

I'm very worried about what we're seeing in relation to home heating oil.

The Taoiseach and I are at IDEM on looking at all of the various levers that are at our disposal.

We've already taken a number of measures to try and help people in relation to energy costs around excise.

We took some decisions in relation to carbon to try and help people in terms of the deferral.

What we now need to do, and we're engaging on this across government, is I think on Budget Day on the 6th of October, try and make a move that gives people certainty beyond next month.

The budget would need to make really significant inroads for you to meet your pledge, wouldn't it?

But tell me what you can tell me right now about what you think the scheme could potentially look like at this stage.

Yeah, so, so you will find out on budget day, but there's a lot that I've already said, and there's a lot we can say.

So I mean, we're not the first country in the world to do this.

In fact, [laughs] far from it, right? And there's a disadvantage to that, i.e., we haven't done it.

There's an advantage to that.

We can learn from others.

So I'm looking at what other countries have done.

Yeah.

And what is your reaction to the sad news of the passing of Martin Nocton?

Well, I'm really so saddened, Adrian, to hear the passing of Martin.

Martin was...

Really a national treasure.

He was somebody I was honoured to have met on many, many occasions.

He was one of our country's most successful entrepreneurs, a proud Dundalk man, educated indeed in De La Salle in Dundalk, where I know he went on to found an annual scholarship programme.

He was the founder of the incredible Glendimplex, a company that's now become a global manufacturing business.

He had that cross-border connection from early on in his career, founding the Glen Electric Group in Newry in County Down in the early 70s and then acquiring Dimplex to create what we now know as Glen Dimplex, which has gone on to become one of the biggest companies in the world.

Is this another area where the consumer is suffering to effectively, and the irony of this about being, uh, competitiveness, protecting uncompetitive industries in Europe?

Yeah, I think we are gonna have to have a look at this in the round.

I mean, I think too many of the conversations around the costs being faced by, uh, individual motorists are looked at in the here and now without actually looking at the structural change that needs to happen.

We need to make it as attractive as possible for people to make the transition.

We need to make it as easy as possible for people to afford to make the transition.

People I speak to right across the country, people I speak to in my own community, they want to do right by their own family, their own environment, uh, and indeed their own cost.

So we've got to look at measures in which we can decouple some of these issues and actually try to structurally reduce costs.

Um, how worried should Ireland be i, i- in this? And, and is, is there any way, uh, y- or any reassurance you can offer people that this is not part of a wider trend of tech job losses in Ireland?

But is it your intention as of now that these excise cuts will start to be phased out in September?

Yes, that's my intention.

That's the decision that we've taken as a government.

And indeed, we intend to legislate for that in the Oireachtas over the course of the next week or so.

But what we wanted to do was a couple of things, Rachel.

We wanted to avoid a cliff edge where people would see diesel rise by 32 cents and petrol by 27 cents.

That simply wasn't tenable.

will you then be increasing taxes in any other area? I mean, the one that's often mentioned by the IMF and others is property tax.

It's quite bizarre, actually.

Make sure it's clear.

Go for it.

Make sure it's clear for you.

Yes, when you use the loo.

Make sure it's not yellow.

Okay, Simon Harris, so you're asking people to sort of check it themselves, is that it?

That's correct, Miriam.

Mm.

Um, and I, I, um, uh, my, my appetite first got whetted in this when in Greystones, the town I'm from and love very much- School principals contacted me a- and were really, really, really, really worried about the anxiety levels they were seeing in young people.

And they, they not me, were saying that it's smartphones in general actually were a part of it.

It was really about smartphones.

And they came together as a community, and they brought in a kind of voluntary code where parents, not teachers, not principals, not the government, not anybody telling you what to do, parents signed up and said, "We won't give our child a smartphone until they're in secondary school."

Yeah.

Um, uh, but of course, we have a housing emergency, right? So it's the first thing, we want houses for young people to be able to buy, right? But secondly, it's not a good idea to run your country on the basis of the revenues earned off people selling houses to each other.

We know where that took our country in the past.

Do you think, first of all, has that reduced the level of abuse at all by you taking such a position? And do you think it kind of sends a strong message to people that are, you know, carrying out these sort of online abuse and threats? Does that show that there's consequences for those actions?

Yes, a couple of different points.

I worry particularly when it comes to online abuse or the fear of online abuse that people it actually prevents good people from putting their name forward in the first place.

So I'm happy to talk about my own situation in a second.

But I remember when I first became leader of this party, or maybe even just before I was leader of the party, I remember meeting lots of people who were considering running for election.

This was the local elections.

And I remember a lot of them citing fear of online abuse as the biggest barrier.

Well, I think

Um, is it official state policy now to abolish private maternity care in Ireland?

It's official state policy to deliver Sláinte Care, which by the way, I think is the policy of all political parties in Dáil Éireann, because when I was Minister for Health, I remember there was a view that we should have an all-party committee and move beyond playing tit for tat with politics, uh, when it comes to our healthcare system.

Uh, and back then it was agreed that there would be a public-only consultant contract.

And what Minister Jennifer Carroll MacG- Neal has done excellently is ensure, uh, that all hospitals, uh, live by public policy.

These are publicly funded institutions.

Um, there's been a lot of commentary in recent days about public versus private.

That's actually the wrong argument.

Are you comfortable with the idea, just before we move on, that if the game is moved to a third-party venue, as it seems like it will be, and we'll find out later in the week, that it might be perceived in some quarters as Ireland being unsafe for Israeli visitors, or Ireland being anti-Semitic, which is a charge that we've faced a lot in the last couple of years? Does it send a good message to the world that we can't receive them for something like a sporting fixture?