Met Éireann issued a cold weather warning this morning. Temperatures are set to plunge to -3° with frost, ice and dangerous conditions expected over the coming days. People are anxious. People are preparing. People are scared because they simply cannot afford another winter like the last one. One communication to my office this morning was from a person who wrote: We got our autumn gas bill. It was €275. The heating had barely been on. We paid just under €20 in VAT, €20 in carbon tax and a standing charge of around the same, all totaling €59.80. The next gas bill will be double that as the weather has changed. This is nearly impossible for us. It looks like we will freeze again this year. It is just survival now. When people are describing their lives as "survival", something is deeply wrong. However, this is the reality so many are living in and this is the Ireland of 2025. Yet, the Government has scrapped the energy credits just as people's bills are rising again. It leaves families to face the cold entirely on their own at the harshest time of the year. Yesterday, St. Vincent de Paul said it expects a quarter of a million calls for help this year. That is a quarter of a million people and families turning to charity because they cannot make ends meet. This tells us how serious, how widespread and how devastating this hardship has become. Across the board, everything is getting dearer. Rents are through the roof as is the weekly food shop. Parents are budgeting down to the last euro. People feel it every time they go to the supermarket or to the petrol station and every time they try to pay a bill. Life is getting harder, not easier. This is the point: the biggest hit of all is one the Government chose to impose. By increasing student fees by €500, it pushed up the cost of education more than anything else this year. For families with students, this is a massive extra burden. It is the single steepest rise in any household cost and the Government caused it. Of course, it also hiked up fuel costs, petrol, diesel and home heating oil. D’eisigh Met Éireann rabhadh aimsire fuaire ar maidin. Tá an teocht le titim go dtí -3° le sioc agus leac oighir agus táthar ag súil le cúinsí contúirteacha sna laethanta amach romhainn. Tá imní ar dhaoine mar tá a fhios acu nach féidir leo teacht slán ar gheimhreadh eile cosúil leis an gceann deireanach a bhí againn. Bhain an Rialtas na creidiúintí fuinnimh uathu, ach tá siad ag teastáil ó dhaoine anois láithreach. Caithfidh an Rialtas an cinneadh sin a mhalartú. The Government, of course, also removed the energy credits. These things did not just happen. These are deliberate decisions taken knowing full well the pressure families were already under. I have raised the issue of the energy companies and their exorbitant prices time and again in this Chamber. I warned repeatedly but the Government failed to appreciate the scale of what is happening out there. I have to continue raising these points because, as the weather gets colder, the hardship increases and more people are pushed to the brink. I have asked the Government before to tackle the energy companies and get them to end their rip-off. However, in the here and now, people need help from the Government. The easiest, most direct and immediate way to do this is to restore the energy credits. I ask again, and I ask plainly: will the Government please restore the energy credits or is it prepared to allow families to struggle through winter under its policies?

Sentiment score: -0.00

No. The Taoiseach's recall is wrong; it is sketchy.

Sentiment score: -0.39

All of the bragging in the world from the Taoiseach does not alter the fact that 250,000 people and families will reach out to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul for help. I am glad the Taoiseach's benches finds this amusing and that his would-be successor is grinning like a Cheshire cat while we have this exchange. I have to tell the Taoiseach that I do not find this funny. I do not need him to mansplain the economy to me. I do not need him to dodge and evade a simple question. I asked him about energy credits. I have set out for him the reality that people are now fearful, that people are not turning on their heat and that the heart is crossways on people when they are opening their bills. That is the reality. It may not land with the Taoiseach. I do not know what reality he lives in, but I know who I represent in here. I represent families that are struggling. I represent working people who are struggling and are now fearful that they cannot make their bills. I asked the Taoiseach: will he restore these energy credits? I would like a straight answer to that precise question.

Sentiment score: 0.14

They clearly do not.

Sentiment score: 0.40

No, we do not.

Sentiment score: -0.30

They cannot heat their homes.

Sentiment score: 0.00

The Taoiseach is delusional.

Sentiment score: 0.00