An emergency budget is just one of the measures being called for to help families struggling to keep their heads above water.
The Social Democrats are putting pressure on the government to introduce such a budget.
The party's National Conference gets underway this weekend
Co-leader Catherine Murphy says the government has some financial wriggle room to target the most vulnerable families:
"You can't have people not able to feed themselves. And essentially, there's a very big additional tax take in the order of VAT that is coming out of the very pockets of people who are struggling. In many ways, that has got to go back to try to keep people just afloat".
