Labour finance spokesman Ged Nash hit out at Sinn Féin’s Mark Ward accusing him of using “unparliamentary language”. Accusing the Government of a “Scrooge-like response the week before Christmas” he said blister packs “are not a luxury. Pharmacists have written to patients proposing to charge a minimum of €20 to dispense blister packs from the beginning of January. Mr Carthy said the Government had found billions for developers, banks and landlords but with older people, dementia patients and disability payments “the approach suddenly becomes penny pinching”. He said to repeated interventions that if he had done that, Mr Carthy would be “in here today with the same cant as always that we’re not taxing enough”.

Source: The Irish Times December 11, 2025 18:18 UTC