I thank the Deputies for bringing forward the motion and using their Private Members' time to give us an opportunity to debate this important issue. The Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, will know well that Sinn Féin has been calling for emergency measures to support workers and families experiencing an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis. Sinn Féin supports the call for an emergency budget. We have been calling for this for some time, and it is welcome to see other parties coming to the table to echo the call and the need for emergency measures. The Minister of State knows that we have set out what we believe needs to be done. The Government needs to cut the USC, put €500 back into workers' pockets, cut excise on fuels, introduce a €500 cost-of-disability emergency payment and a €400 social welfare payment, to include pensioners, and extend the fuel allowance by a further eight weeks. Inflation is now double what it was when the Government wrote its budget last year. Some 320,000 people are in arrears on their electricity bills. One in four cannot pay their gas. I was out canvassing last week with Janice Boylan and she spoke to a young woman in her flat. The young woman has a blow heater that she turns on occasionally because she is in a constant battle with the mould. She does not turn on her gas because she cannot afford it, though that would probably heat her home and help her in the battle with the mould. She cannot afford that so she has a small but expensive-to-run blow heater and she feels that is more manageable. The end result is that she and her kids can be cold in their home in the evening. The sun might shine during the day, but in the evening she is cold in her home with her children. She needs to turn on the heater to try to air out the house because the mould is so bad. Can the Minister of State imagine for a moment how that woman felt, while she was engaged in a battle with the mould in her Dublin City Council flat, when she read that the Lord Mayor and Deputy Buttimer's colleague, the Government representative for the local electoral area, flew first-class to California, just after he had voted to jack up her rent? The plea, certainly from us, is that if the Government cannot do something effective, something that will actually intervene in the lives of working people, if it cannot lift the burden, it should not, for the love and honour of Jesus, make it worse. I urge the Labour Party to reflect on its own vote to jack up the rent for Dublin City Council tenants in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis while they are dealing with some of the worst conditions people have to live in in this State. The Lord Mayor turned to the left when he got on the plane; unfortunately, he does not turn to the left any other time. There is a lesson in that for the Labour Party and the others that supported the call to jack up rents in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. I am not asking for any ambition because Jesus knows we are sick asking for that and there is none. The very least the Government could do is simply not make things worse. The previous junior Minister read out the greatest hits of who the Government tries to blame. It is blaming global politics. It has blamed the Opposition plenty of times. It is at that craic again. It has blamed the weather. Will the Government wake up and take a look at what is going on? There is nothing amusing about this.
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There is nothing amusing-----
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There is nothing amusing about-----
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-----the poverty that people are living in at the moment.
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I am on my feet.
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Dún do bhéal, le do thoil, and perhaps listen.
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Perhaps you would open your ears.
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Perhaps you would listen. If you listen, you can hear. I am speaking-----
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-----on behalf of people who are getting crushed by a cost-of-living crisis. When they look to the Government, they see a Government that is out of touch and out of ideas. We have presented what we believe needs to be done. Others have done the same. The Government has chosen to turn a deaf ear to that. The message is being received loud and clear. This Government is telling people who are in dire straits today that they have to wait until next October, January or God knows when to get some help and support. They need that help and support now. That is why people say there is a cost-of-living crisis. The Government may not choose to recognise or acknowledge that. It can stick its fingers in its ears and refuse to hear it, but there is a cost-of-living crisis. In the few seconds remaining to me, I will speak about people with disabilities, who have seen a €1,400 cut in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. They are faced with making choices between heating, eating and charging mobility devices. These are not my words but the words of the disabled community. The Minister of State should listen to them instead of turning a deaf ear or sniggering, which helps absolutely nobody.
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The next slot is the Social Democrats. The Deputies have two minutes each.
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I ask all Deputies to address their remarks through the Chair.
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In accordance with Standing Order 85(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time on Wednesday, 13 May 2026.
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