People do not protest because they like protesting. They protest because they feel they have no choice and because their backs are against the wall. That is clearly why the hauliers, contractors and small farmers came out and protested. Their backs are against the wall because they have faced absolutely gigantic hikes in the cost of being able to earn and maintain an income. Because they protested, and only because they protested, the Government has been forced to make some concessions to them, although these are still far short of what the protestors actually asked for, namely price controls. People Before Profit are the only people in this Dáil, even to this day, who have said that we need price controls. I reiterate it and remind the Minister of State that it was a Fianna Fáil Government, in 2007, that brought in the Consumer Protection Act, which states that in a situation of emergency, the Government can act to impose orders to control the price of goods that are affected by that emergency. If this is not an emergency, with the hikes in petrol, diesel, home heating oil, gas, and electricity, then I do not know what an emergency looks like. This is self-evidently an emergency. It will potentially get worse because of the warmongering of Donald Trump. I seriously hope the people who were cheering on Donald Trump are thinking about it now. The signs were there. He is a property speculator. He made his money from property speculation and now turns out to be a bloodthirsty warmonger as well, whose warmongering is leading to farmers and workers in this country suffering economically as well as death and destruction raining down across the Middle East. We need the Government to use the legislation that Fianna Fáil introduced in 2007 to impose price controls. The Government cannot leave workers behind. Some 320,000 people are in electricity and gas arrears. The number of those arrears has doubled in the past few years. Workers will fight in the same way as the hauliers did if the Government does not do something serious to address their concerns.

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