I acknowledge Aontú for tabling this motion in good faith. It names a crisis that is biting every man, woman and child in this country. Families with two incomes are working harder than their parents ever did and having less to show for it. Grocery bills are up 40%, energy bills are up nearly 60% and rent is at a level unthinkable ten years ago. The diagnosis, like much of this motion, is correct. However, the correct diagnosis followed by the wrong prescription does not cure the patient. The hard truth this House must face is that the policies that brought us into this mess are the wrong ones to sort it out. For 15 years, we have been governed by an economic instinct that treats the citizen's wallet as the State's first resort and last reserve. Tax it, levy it, surcharge it, toll it and then families buckle under it. Government members will scratch their heads and wonder why. It offers a one-off cheque for Christmas and call it some sort of compensation. That is not compensation. It is a Government picking your pockets and handing you back the bus fare. That is what the Government has done on a regular basis. Let me offer two solutions to get to the root of this symptom. The first is the universal social charge, USC, which was introduced in 2011 as an emergency measure, brought in from the wrecking and crashing of the economy by the Fianna Fáil Administration and sold to this country as temporary. Now, 15 years later, the emergency is well and truly over but the tax remains. It is the most cynical levy in our system because the tax credit cannot touch it. It is charged at almost the top gross income on the first euro. A worker earning €50,000 hands over more than €1,000 in USC alone. The self-employed, who are the drivers of our economy, who take the risks, who create jobs and who, when something happens to them or they are sick, are not entitled to any social welfare, are taxed at a rate of 11% on top. Independent Ireland's answer is plain: abolish the USC. Do not tinker with a tax band or two, do not shave half a percent off a rate here and there and issue a press release. Abolish the universal social charge and let every worker in this country keep what they earn. That is a real payment structure relief - money in the pocket of every nurse, every electrician and every shop assistant every week of this year. For those in this House who will ask how we will pay for that, I would say look at your own motions, the things that have been brought to this House: MetroLink, costing €15.8 billion; and a children's hospital that has quadrupled in cost to €5 billion in overruns since 2023. You do not fund a tax cut on the back of workers but by ending wasteful spending. Wasteful spending is something the Government is very good at doing. The second solution is energy, and the Minister of State mentioned that himself. The contradiction he failed to mention is the Irish policy laid before us. We have some of the highest electricity prices in Europe. In 2021 the Government legislated for a ban on all new oil and gas exploration in our waters. It chose deliberately to keep the resources in the ground. We are aware that the Corrib gas field is running dry. By 2030, the Government's own figures have told us that the country will import over 90% of gas, almost all through pipelines from the United Kingdom. We are one of only a handful of EU states that has no gas storage of its own. The Minister of State is talked about renewable energies and how important they are. Nobody on this side of the House, and certainly in Independent Ireland, objects to renewable energy but we realise the importance and the reality that we are going to be dependent on fossil fuels for another 20 to 40 years. We can face the facts and deal in reality, unlike the Government. The Government chose not to open or explore Barryroe, knowing there are hundreds of millions of barrels of oil there. It will not even allow the exploration of it and has chosen not to look at it. The Government intends to import energy from France and Spain. That is not renewable energy, which the Minister of State knows as well as I do. He is denying that. His environmental policy is dressed up as virtue. That is the reality of it. He can talk and virtue-signal about renewable energies all he wants, and nobody is objecting to that, but he has to realise there are other energies as well that we are heavily dependent on in this country. The Government has to lift the ban and look at our energy security. Energy security is national security.

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