Ar dtús, ba mhaith liom a rá go bhfuil rudaí an-deacair do dhaoine anois. I thank Independent Ireland for bringing forward this motion and giving us the opportunity to talk about these very important issues regarding the cost-of-living pressures people are facing day in and day out. We would take a different approach to dealing with this crisis from the one outlined in the motion, because we believe it is fundamentally important that people have the emergency short-term supports that are needed and that we take action that is focused on the medium and long term in order that we do just not go from crisis to crisis. I want to talk about that more during my contribution. An important part of our response has to be measures to help people who are struggling to keep food on the table today and who are worrying about when it gets cold again and how they are going to heat their homes. They are making difficult, impossible choices day in and day out. Coming into the summer, there are parents who know that they cannot afford to pay for activities for their kids. Their kids' friends are able to take part in activities that cost money but they are not. There are families who know they will not be able to take a holiday. There are also families who are already thinking about the start of school at the end of August or the beginning of September and how they are going to meet costs relating to iPads, technology, etc. All of these worries gnaw at people day in and day out. People will literally go to bed and wake up worrying about them. The Government response has been wholly inadequate. At the same time, we have to adopt a long-term approach which means that we are not just going from crisis to crisis. I will talk more about that. The Minister referred to moving towards domestic sources of renewable energy to increase our energy security, boost competitiveness and reduce the burden on ordinary people during shocks like this. The key words there are "moving towards." Fine Gael has been in office since 2011, and we still have no offshore wind at all. We had an offshore wind farm at that time, so we are actually going backwards in terms of offshore renewable energy. That is an incredible indictment of this Government. It is all the more incredible when you look at what Spain has achieved in recent years. Spain has broken its dependency on gas in the context of electricity generation. It has put more renewable wind and solar energy in place, which means it has some of the cheapest electricity bills for households and businesses in Europe. Contrastingly, in Ireland, we have the highest electricity bills for households and businesses in Europe. Not only that, our country is one of the most reliant in the EU on imported fossil fuels. We are incredibly exposed to what is happening in the Middle East at present and to any future shocks. We are on the way to paying out billions of euro in fines for not meeting our climate targets because of the failure of the Government to invest sufficiently in renewable energy. The Social Democrats have put forward a practical proposal for something that could be done quickly by the Government to help with this. Our solar for all plan would increase the grants available to households, because availing of the grants available in order to invest in solar panels is currently out of reach for most households. This would bring down household electricity bills and help us to meet our renewable energy targets, which would mean we would be less exposed to current circumstances and to the future shocks which, unfortunately, are going to come. I implore the Government to take on board our practical proposals. They could be implemented quickly. We need those on top of emergency measures, such as targeted energy credits of €400 to help households through the immediate crisis. We need an emergency cost-of-disability payment for disabled people who, incredibly, had up to €1,400 taken off their annual incomes by the Government in the budget before this latest crisis even hit. It was an incredibly cruel move on the part of this Government to cut disabled people's incomes by up to €1,400. Having promised a cost-of-disability payment to help disabled people with the extra costs they face in both the general election campaign and the programme for Government, the Government took up to €1,400 off disabled people. That was a cruel, unnecessary decision in a country that has a lot of resources available to it. We should also be working on the more long-term measures. We have the highest unemployment rate of disabled people in Europe. We would not need such high levels of income supports if the Government took the correct and necessary actions, like those taken by other European countries, to ensure that more disabled people could participate in the labour markets. It is incredible that the Government's targets for employment for disabled people in the public sector are below the current employment rate. That is an incredible indictment of the Government's record in respect of this matter, which came to light during the Estimates process in the documentation that the Government produced. It is indefensible. A great deal needs to be done to address these issues. Other measures that are needed include affordable childcare, another matter in respect of which the Government broke all its promises. During the election campaign, Simon Harris promised that within 100 days of the new Government being formed, there would be a proper roadmap in place for affordable childcare in order to get the cost down to €200 a month. Of course, that was not produced. In the budget, there were no measures to reduce the cost of childcare for families. That is a massive block for families. That should have been done. There were promises, again by Simon Harris, to phase out third level fees. In the budget, the Government actually increased fees by €1,000, thereby putting families and students under even more pressure. There has been promise after promise by the Government about helping people with the cost of living. What it actually did made matters worse. We really need the kinds of actions that we are talking about to get us out of these short-term crises. Sinéad O'Sullivan has written extensively about the need to build up the State's ability to invest in public services, capacity and renewable energy in order that we are not just having to put more money into emergency measures time and again, which, of course, reduces our capacity to be able to invest in medium- and long-term measures.

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