The first thing I want to say on the Finance Bill we are discussing is that it goes to show how this Government just does not get it. It is another failure at a time when the Government had the money and knew people were struggling. It could have stepped in. If people throw their minds back to late February and March when people came on to the street, remember the anger that was there. The Minister of State and the Government went on holidays for St. Patrick’s Day to get out of here while people were paying double for home heating oil and struggling to pay their bills.
Sentiment score: -0.27
The Minister of State’s Government was not where it should have been, namely in the Dáil doing its job, protecting ordinary workers, families, pensioners, farmers, hauliers and small businesses who were, and who still are, looking for help. The Minister of State can try to interrupt me but I talk to these people. I was on the line in Whitegate, Cork city and Youghal. Those people are still feeling it today. There are more than 300,000 people in arrears with electricity. A quarter of people who get gas are in arrears. There are people who use home heating oil who cannot pay their bills. Some people have to use their savings and some have to borrow from the credit union or family but some have to go cold because they do not have the money to put home heating oil in the tank. I know some of those people. The Minister of State might come in and say, "We are great boys" but-----
Sentiment score: 0.13
-----Electric Ireland has 1 million customers and it is putting up the cost of electricity by 8% and gas by 7.7% and the Government is doing nothing to tackle it. What is the famous phrase? It is standing idly by while energy companies come in and gouge the market. They pile the pressure on ordinary, hard-working families and what is the Government doing? It has half a Bill instead of delivering for people. We have pensioners who are afraid to turn on the lights, boil kettles or turn on the heating. The weather might be good today but if the Minister of State was around the past couple of days, he knows there was many a night when people had to put on the heating. Where is the support for ordinary, hard-working people and families? This Bill is not it. I was outside SuperValu in Hollyhill and a guy who is not a farmer, haulier or owner of a small business but an ordinary working man said to me that he stood by the farmers. The reason he stood by them was that somebody had to stand up and be counted and they were there. Over the summer the price of diesel will go up by 32 cent and the price of petrol will go up by 20 cent, and the Government uses the camouflage of the summer holidays again. It will run out of here, run out the door. I am asking the Minister of State a straight question. Will he give a commitment that those prices will not go up? We also had the carbon tax increases. Has the Government any idea what ordinary people are dealing with? I live in Cork. We have a bus service that is in chaos, with buses not turning up and buses always late, and then the Government puts extra taxes on people for their diesel and their petrol. We need supports for ordinary people. Energy credits, a cost-of-living budget for people with disabilities and a reduction in the USC for ordinary, hard-working people - these are the things that need to be delivered. I have a list of stuff here where the Government has failed. Will it not stand up now and stand with the people? We are running a huge surplus and the Government is sitting on it.
Sentiment score: 0.07