The Taoiseach has said he believes Ireland is on the path to unification and he thinks there will be a united Ireland in his lifetime.
Leo Varadkar said that in that united Ireland there were going to be a million people who are British and the success of a country would be judged by how it treats its minorities.
In January, he declined to answer whether or not he thought there would be a united Ireland in his lifetime when appearing at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
He said then it could be deemed provocative during sensitive EU-UK negotiations on the Northern Ireland Protocol.
In a wide-ranging interview on RTÉ's News at One, Mr Varadkar said the reduction in energy prices by Electric Ireland is welcome but he does not believe the cuts will be enough.
He said he plans to meet energy companies soon to tell them there should be further reductions.
There will be both universal and targeted measures in the Budget to help households pay energy bills, the Taoiseach said.
Although he would not rule out giving the State's regulators more powers to monitor energy prices, he said they have quite extensive powers at the moment.
The Taoiseach added that good competition was the best way to bring prices under control.
Speaking about the Wolfe Tones performance at Electric Picnic, Mr Varadkar said people like ballads they can sing along to, and some people read too much into the politics of it.
But he said a republican ballad, a nice song to sing for some people, can be deeply offensive to other people.
If this country is going be united then people must have a think about how their words and songs might be heard by others, he said.
On party matters, following Richard Bruton's decision not to contest the next election, the Taoiseach expects "one or two more" Fine Gael TDs will also stand down.
In relation to RTÉ, the Taoiseach said he did not know that senior company executives received a 10% pay increase last year, but Government did not want to determine pay in State-owned enterprises.
Mr Varadkar expressed confidence in the RTÉ Board.
"I have a lot of confidence in the new Director General. I think he has made a very good start in the past few months in very difficult circumstances," the Taoiseach said.
However, he stated that before the Government can sanction additional funding for RTÉ, it would need to see a new strategy and a reform plan.
This is needed to give Government and the taxpayer confidence that there will be "wider reforms" beyond "governance changes and better accounting in the future", he said.
In the context of the upcoming Budget, Mr Varadkar said the Economic and Social Research Institute has made a valid case that targeted measures work best for children in households where there is poverty.
He said this would give a better return than "maybe" giving every family an extra €5 or €10 a month.
The Taoiseach said it is impossible to say when homeless figures will start to fall, but he hopes "they will start to come down at some point this year".
