I am delighted to speak this evening. As a rural TD, I have always strongly advocated for the haulage and agricultural sectors, which are interwoven in many respects. The recent protests were a sign that not only was the Government moving in the wrong direction, but it had completely taken its ear off the ground. You need listening skills at all times for effective communication. That effective communication was not there, hence the protests. I stood with many hard-working, decent and genuine people at the protests in Tullamore, Birr and Cloghan where I heard directly from many agri-contractors in particular and small haulage companies trying to deal with the fact that their businesses were on a knife edge, ready to go to the wall. It was a shocking situation that should never have arisen. If the communication, as in listening skills, had been there and if the Government had heeded the warnings, it would not have come to that. In ten years as a TD, I have never seen anything like the distress it caused to people who were really grappling with many issues. These are people who create huge employment in rural counties like Offaly. It is not fair to do that. With the direction this Government is going, it appears at times that those who work the hardest are punished the most in terms of the haulage, agricultural and construction sectors. I met people from all of those sectors on the protest lines. The Government needs to listen to them. That needs to change and be learned from this. I commend the IRHA president, Mr. Ger Hyland, who made the case many times in here for the sector. He has also stated many times that the sector is being taxed out of existence. There needs to be a look at how business is being done. Hauliers are an important cog in the wheel of the Irish economy. They need to be supported and listened to. Timely action needs to be taken. It is important that we support the people contributing greatly to our economy. Hauliers are on the road 24 hours a day, 52 weeks a year. Their need for certainty does not disappear because of a war breaking out or a political decision taken elsewhere, yet successive Governments unfortunately waited for a crisis to emerge before taking action. There is a crisis and the Government needs to act. It needs to continuously support these sectors. They are people who create much-needed employment, particularly in rural counties. The warning signs were there in plain sight, such as the chronic driver shortage that the IRHA quantified as requiring 4,000 additional drivers over five years and the punitive toll increases now costing the sector approximately €72,792 a day, with some large operators paying between €20,000 and €35,000 per month. That is unacceptable. I met the senior management of Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, last year. At that meeting, I asked about barrier-free tolls at the Dublin Port tunnel to allow trucks to move more freely. The Ceann Comhairle raised this in the Chamber many a time. I commend her for that. It is another example of the Government not listening. It should be able to intervene directly with TII. I met TII already as an Independent TD, so I ask the Government to meet it. Not only should the Government meet it about barrier-free tolls, but it should meet TII about excessive toll charges. This is not sustainable for any sector. The excessive toll charges need to be called out. There need to be immediate meetings with TII to address those issues. No business can sustain that. Hauliers are not asking for favours. They are the lifeblood of retail and manufacturing and rural economies. They pay diesel, tax, VAT, PAYE and PRSI, road tax, tolls and the insurance levy, an unrelenting burden on razor-thin margins. Is that not an example of them being taxed out of existence? When they warned that toll avoidance would push HGVs onto unsuitable secondary roads, wasting millions of litres of fuel, they were ignored - another fine example of practical and constructive solutions put forward all the time but no one listening or taking action. There has to be a change of direction. At times, it feels like the Government has moved so far left that it has left behind businesses and is divorced from reality.

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