The Green Party has no confidence in the Government, and I will vote against the motion. Over the course of the past week, the actions of the Government continually made a difficult situation worse. Ministers caused confusion, unnecessarily raised tensions and ultimately failed to protect the Irish people's ability to move and go about their business for five long days. Hospital appointments were missed, emergency vehicles were delayed, people could not get to work and, vitally, access to fuel was disrupted, and continues to be. The origins of the energy price crisis lies in our country's over-reliance on fossil fuels. The war in Iran has shown for the second time in four years how our economy is totally at the mercy of the whims of Putin, Trump and the Ayatollah. Yet, as part of its response, the Government is undermining the very actions that will reduce our dependence on foreign fossil fuels, measures like the warmer homes scheme and retrofitting. The funding for these measures has now been put at risk by the deferral of the carbon tax. Our country will remain vulnerable to energy shocks until we transition our entire economy to renewable sources of energy and across the past 15 months, the Government has demonstrated it does not possess the belief in that transition to be able to make the case for it to the Irish people.

Sentiment score: -0.24