It is 27.4 cent on a litre.
Sentiment score: 0.00
You are misleading people.
Sentiment score: -0.40
It works both ways.
Sentiment score: 0.00
In responding to the debate, I thank Deputies for raising the points they did. I will go through some of them. Deputy Doherty started off with a fascination with ordinary people. I am not sure who the extraordinary people are who he is not talking about. There are only ordinary people. They are all ordinary people. Somehow he has a monopoly on understanding what ordinary people have to go through and do not. He talked about standing in the farmers' kitchen and understanding how much pressure they were under and about the fishers and how much pressure they were under. One thing struck me. In his discussions with them, did he point out to the farmer the €100 million package that is being delivered this week or the 7.4 cent cut on excise this week that Sinn Féin seems opposed to that is there to help? Did he explain to the fisher about the €5 million per month of support there will be from March to July as part of the package that has been agreed and that there is no mineral oil tax on fuel for fishers because the State heavily subsidises mineral oil because we value what fishers do? No, he did not, because what he prefers to do as an Opposition spokesperson, as Sinn Féin wants, is to keep everyone whipped up, keep telling them there is a bogeyman over there and someone to blame. It is great to see Deputy Doherty back in the House. I was just highlighting how he misled the Dáil when he said a 4 cent cut will not wash for farmers when the cut on green diesel for farmers is 27.4 cent, comprising the 7.4 cent we are agreeing in these motions and the subsidy of 20 cent per litre on green diesel there will be in the coming months. The Government has the back of farmers, fishers and foresters and we will support them. Deputy Nash raised that there is nothing here for the ordinary worker and Deputy Cian O'Callaghan talked about individual workers he deals with and the constituents who have come to him and the real impact on people's lives. One of the workers he referenced could not afford meat.
Sentiment score: 0.05
It was a pensioner who could not afford meat as part of her diet. The Deputy specifically mentioned food on a number of occasions. If we do not intervene with the support of our €100 million package for the agrifood sector, it will have a direct impact on the cost of inflation. Energy is the biggest driver of inflation. Food inflation will absolutely have an impact on workers, so telling workers that these measures will not help them is not true. The measures supporting farmers and our package to support hauliers with a €140 million intervention to reduce the cost of logistics services that bring the food from farm to fork directly benefit everyone.
Sentiment score: 0.17
I am making the point. I am not attacking. I am making the point that the interventions the Government has brought in, and the packages beyond the excise measures we are voting on here, will directly support all people in their lives and will help to avoid the cost-of-living crisis that impacts on everyone. Things do not happen in isolation. Deputy Hearne talked about people not being able to cover the basics. It is the same point with where people are struck there. Deputy Tóibín talked about the inability to talk to people and to listen. I have been engaging with the farmer representative bodies, the fishers and others for weeks on developing schemes. There are constraints and this is the challenge for the Government. We have to explain the constraints around the energy directive, how it needs to work around state aid rules with the EU and how that takes time. We were not in a position to do more on green diesel in the first intervention, but it has taken me time here to explain that, as it would in an interview. I cannot make a short, snappy TikTok video, which I suspect was the intention of Deputy Doherty when he was here earlier putting on the record that the intervention on green diesel was only 4 cent, wherever he got that figure from.
Sentiment score: 0.02
He might correct the record.
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Deputy Collins talked about frustration. Yesterday on "Morning Ireland" he spoke to farmers at a volatile time. I absolutely accept how angry people have been and how many people have felt the challenge of the energy shock. After a volatile week when our country has been in a bad place, we all have responsibility. Everyone in this House has a mandate and was elected to help people. That is what we are here for. I do not question the mandate at all, but I do question why someone, after such a volatile weekend when a serious package had been agreed by the Cabinet on the Sunday evening, which Deputy Collins was well aware of, would go on "Morning Ireland" on Monday morning and try to tell people it is only 2.4 cent per litre on green diesel and try to keep the protest going and to make people who are upset and hurting more upset and hurting. That does not say compassion to me. No one in this House has a monopoly on compassion. The Opposition talks about ordinary people as though we do not. It is clear what they are doing. The use of language matters, as a colleague said earlier.
Sentiment score: -0.12
From that perspective, these interventions matter and that is why we oppose the amendment put forward by Sinn Féin.
Sentiment score: 0.03