The twins above in the Gallery can be very proud of their mother. She is a great parliamentarian. There is a growing sense in this community and across Ireland that the ordinary working people are being pushed to their limits, not just by one single crisis, but by continuous pressure every single day and every single week. Nowhere is that pressure more visible than it is in commuter towns - in commuters, taxi drivers and working people across the cities and suburbs. They are the people who get up before dawn, who spend hours sitting in traffic. They are the people who are paying more and more simply to get to work and get home again. The Government tells us that the economy is strong, but ordinary people do not experience the economy through statistics, they experience it at the petrol pump, the till and when the insurance renewal lands through the front door. They experience it when they pay another toll, parking charge, tax, electricity bill or gas bill. I will put the biggest fear in this country to the Minister and on the record of this House. It is the current postman's knock, and what bill will be dropped through the letterbox at any time. People ask themselves very simple questions: what is the point and when is this going to stop? For many workers, life no longer feels like progress, it feels like survival. Today, I particularly want to mention taxi drivers because they see the real Ireland, which the Government is sometimes very removed from. They see the nurses coming home from night shifts. They see the elderly person abandoned by poor public transport. They see the young worker who cannot afford to live near their job. They see the family trying to stretch every euro at the end of every week. Taxi drivers themselves are under enormous strain as a result of fuel costs. Insurance is crippling them. Vehicle costs are increasing. There are also increasing licensing costs and regulations yet many are earning less in real terms than they were earning many years ago. Some of them are asking whether it is worth staying on the road or if it is financially viable any more. The Government seems to have a tremendous disconnect from the reality facing these workers. Outside a few well-served urban areas, the private car is not a luxury. It is not a luxury for any family in this country. It is how people get to work. It is how parents bring their children to school. It is how carers look after their elderly relatives. It is how ordinary life functions in this State. Increasingly, commuters feel punished for simply trying to get their lives together and to live their lives. Commuters are stuck in traffic for hours in these cities and towns, watching infrastructure delayed again and again. They are paying more every year while getting less in return. People are exhausted - financially, mentally and from hearing that Ireland is doing wonderfully while their own standard of living has continued to decline. This frustration is no longer confined to one generation or class in this country. Younger people feel it. Middle-income people feel it. Older people feel it. Small business owners feel it. There is a widening gap between the political establishment and the messaging this Government is sending and the public reality. The public see it clearly. This debate is not just about transport. It is not just about getting our finances in order; it is about affordability, quality of life and whether ordinary working people still matter to this Republic. If somebody works hard in this State, contributes to society and obeys the rules and they still cannot get ahead, then something is fundamentally wrong in this Republic. The public know that and they are increasingly losing their patience with the Government.

Sentiment score: -0.03