The leaders of the three Government parties are meeting tonight to discuss ways of addressing the rising cost of living.

A package of measures is set to be agreed by the coalition Government this week, while the Cabinet is also expected to sign off on the National Retrofit Scheme tomorrow morning.

The Government is believed to be on course to increase a planned €113.50 energy rebate, and the period in which Fuel Allowance can be claimed may also be extended beyond the current 28 weeks.

It comes as a junior minister has been criticised for saying that rather than complaining people can have a serious impact on their finances by shopping around.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance Sean Fleming told RTÉ's Drivetime that his main advice to people is to switch suppliers as inflation sees household expenses soar.

"Rather than just complaining and [asking] 'What's the Government going to do for me?', you can actually have a serious impact on your own finance, but it involves people having to do some work themselves," Mr Fleming said.

The Fianna Fáil TD for Laois-Offaly said that his net salary is "about €1,000 a week," but insisted that this advice is relevant to people on any income level.

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences


He said that he does the shopping for his house every week and knows the price of food in different supermarkets.

"The best thing to do is if you need to change your supermarket, change your supermarket.

"If you need to change who you order your oil from every so often, change that too," he said.

He insisted that shopping around for cheaper electricity, gas, home heating oil, insurance and mortgage rates will lead to reductions in household expenses.

"If you move around you can get better prices," he insisted. He added that people must be willing to make the effort to save money.

Labour Leader Alan Kelly said Minister Fleming has demonstrated just how out of touch the Government is with the realities of everyday life.

He added that a year ago a litre of diesel cost €1.20 and now it is €1.65 and shopping around will not change that.

Sinn Féin's Louise O'Reilly described the remarks as insensitive and tone deaf, adding that they ignore the crisis that families and workers are facing.

Earlier the Taoiseach said the Government has to plan on the basis that steep cost of living rises will be here for the medium term, and certainly for the next number of months.

Speaking in Killarney this afternoon, Mr Martin accepted there were limits to the extent the Government can assist people who have been put under pressure by rising inflation.

However, he said the priority now is to come up with a package of measures that would "cushion the blow" for people.

He said the details of that package would be revealed by the end of the week.

"The priority right now is that we can bring in a range of measures that would cushion the blow for many, many people out there who clearly are suffering the impact of price rises and that is the agenda at the moment," Mr Martin said.

"The Minister for Public Expenditure and the Minister for Finance are working on ideas around that."

He said however that he would not go into specifics on what measures the package may contain.

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences

"We have indicated more broadly that we are looking at charges, we are looking at costs that people have to bear. You will recall last week the Leaving Cert fees were waived, so we are looking at a range of charges that we could reduce costs for people in their ordinary, everyday lives," he added.

The Taoiseach said that inflation is being driven by external, global factors, such as fuel prices.

He added it was a reminder for the country of the need to "double down" on the use of renewable energy, and to reduce Ireland's dependence on gas and other fossil fuels.

"We want to do some measures like we did in the Budget, targeting people on low incomes to weather this particular inflationary cycle.

"We all need to be realistic in terms of what's achievable."

Additional reporting Paschal Sheehy