I want to raise the comments in relation to the Minister with responsibility for the media. When the media covered the protests, they covered the ordinary men and women. The Minister responsible, who holds the purse strings for the media, called for an investigation into the media. What an abuse of ministerial power. This is the most authoritarian thing that we heard in recent days. The truth is that this Government introduced a rescue package in excess of €700 million last year for RTÉ to bail it out. Is this what he paid for - this level of control that he is trying to exert? The truth is that this Government tried to blacken the names of protesters. Then the Government looked to the media to try to support it and spread that propaganda. They were ordinary men and women. That was deeply wrong. I have written to the Chair of the Oireachtas committee on media. The Minister should be hauled in to account for his comments. The truth is that the Government, and the previous Government of which Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were a part, have pursued a policy of high energy costs. In fact, embedded in the carbon tax was the intention to increase fuel prices year on year. It was baked into legislation irrespective of the cost. That was the policy, and now it is starting to unravel. The Minister condemned the protesters for blocking fuel, but it was his Government that banned oil and gas exploration. It made us reliant on the international markets and now it is blaming those international markets for the cost of fuel even though it was the Government's policy to begin with. We should be focusing on incentivising small-scale renewable energy generation like solar and biodigestion, but there are significant issues in relation to that. Just the other week, I spoke to a farmer who had a biodigester. Even after several months, he still cannot get connected to the grid. Other farmers have applied for the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, grant for solar generation, but just 10% of applications have been successful. One arm of the Government does not know what the other arm is doing. The Government's policy is totally wrong. It has created this crisis and now it is complaining that the people are raising concerns. It is time that the policy of high energy costs is reviewed.

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