I am glad to get the opportunity to speak. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this motion before us this evening. Motoring costs affect every man, woman and child on the road. Kerry is a very diverse county with three peninsulas, and if you are going anywhere, it is a long journey. People cannot manage without a car because without one, they are marooned. I will start off with the challenges young people face with the cost of driving tests, lessons and all the rest of it. They are doing everything right and then they are being robbed by insurance companies. We are all being robbed by insurance companies. Again, it comes down to the regulator. I do not know if we have a regulator. He is not transparent anyway. He cannot be seen or he has taken no action anywhere. At this stage, the only time we got value for the money we paid for insurance was when Seán Quinn was in the market. God be good to him wherever he is because he created competition, and he was wrongly blown out of it because there were too many against what he was able to do. I am sorry about what happened to him because we were able to afford insurance at that time. The carbon tax was brought in to deter people from driving and to use other methods of transport. The remaining Green Party TD had the gall to start talking about the cost of motoring and insurance this evening. He forgot to tell anyone that it was he and his gang who orchestrated the carbon tax. They ensured that it was put in place for ten years by the last Government. At no time was I in favour of carbon tax. I am glad to see that more people are joining me against it now, although there was no account of them at the very beginning. It is very unfair. Coming up along the road this morning, I saw that fuel at the gas stations has gone up almost to €1.80 per litre and it is over that in many places. There is no need for an extra deterrent in the form of the carbon tax to try to deter people from driving because the fuel is dear enough since the Ukrainian war when it went up and there is no stopping it. It has gone up today and when we are going down tomorrow, it will have gone up again. There is no law or order in it. When the cost of fuel goes up, the cost of ancillary things like batteries and tyres goes up also. The cost of passing the NCT affects every man, woman and child. Some of our roads are not in a great state. The local authority and the Department are doing their best but, despite all their best efforts, we have inclement weather and rainwater on roads and they are constantly being damaged. Cars are affected and it is harder for them to pass the test. Let us look at what it costs the transport industry to be on the road. Likewise, the cost of testing a lorry or bus is €3,000 or €4,000 to do small things, just to keep them going. You would not make any wonder out of it. The cost of the fuel they must pay each day and tax is driving up the cost of living. Fuel is the main driver of the increase in the cost of living. I have no problem in the world in saying that. Is there any way that the carbon tax could be looked at because diesel, petrol and oil are dear enough without driving the cost up further with the carbon tax? We are told that the money is being put into the retrofitting of houses. The Minister of State should tell that to some old person who has been waiting for two and a half years to get an answer back from the SEAI. It is only a joke. The SEAI must be made accountable. It does not answer the phone to any public representative, be it a Minister, TD or county councillor. It is not answerable to anyone. After two and a half years, the SEAI might come back and say a person will get this or they will not get that or whatever. That is not fair. That is not the way to run a country or a Department. It is very unfair what is happening with that money because it is not doing what it should be doing according to what the Government says it is doing. It is very disingenuous the way we are treating people on the road, young and old. They cannot come or go anywhere if they do not have a car, and it costs them the sun, moon and stars to keep it going. There is a thing down in Killarney that we have been told has been wiped off the slate and there is no account of it. The railway station and the bus station are side by side. We asked for a bridge or other connection to link the two stations. Instead of that, when you get out of the train, you have to carry all your bags and baggage down past the Great Southern Hotel, out onto the East Avenue Road and up the street again to get to the bus. Likewise, if you get off the bus, it is totally and absolutely ridiculous to have to walk in the pouring rain - it rains a lot in Kerry. I am sad to say that we get more than our share. We believe we are being wronged there as well. I ask the Minister of State to put this back on the programme for delivery, because the people have been promised it. We are not in the 1900s now. We are in the 2000s. I ask the Minister of State to look at this favourably because it was in the pipeline and now there is no account in the world of it.

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All right.

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