We need an emergency budget to address the “absolutely shocking level of poverty” families in Ireland are now facing, according to People Before Profit.

Speaking outside Leinster House this afternoon, Dun Laoghaire TD Richard Boyd Barret said the Government needs to immediately introduce price controls.

He said the Government is failing to address the cost of living crisis – and called for increases to pension, wages and welfare rates to “at least keep pace with inflation”.

Richard Boyd Barrett calls for price caps on basic goods and services with families in Ireland facing ‘absolutely shocking levels of poverty’. pic.twitter.com/LC9cpg7m3U

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“Families, just on food alone, are looking at increased costs of about €1,100 a year,” Deputy Boyd Barrett told reporters.

“You can add to that shocking increases in energy costs and shocking increases in rents and accommodation.”

He said ordinary people have seen their incomes “cut by thousands of Euro” and the one-off payments introduce in the budget in September “have all now disappeared”.

“Huge sections of our population are now very considerably poorer and many are being driven into actual poverty as a result of the failure of the Government to address the cost of living crisis,” he said.

People Before Profit is calling for social welfare payments to rise to the same level as inflation and price controls to be introduced on “basic goods and services”.

The party says the Government has the power to act under the Consumer Protection Act.

With reporting from Sean Defoe.

Main image: People Before Profit Solidarity TD Richard Boyd Barrett on the plinth at Leinster House. Image: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews