It looks like my colleagues are not here so I will take their time until they arrive, if that is okay with the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I and others were looking at the financial resolutions. In respect of the carbon tax, it looks to me as if it will be ring-fenced over a certain period, going forward. It has now been put off. I have serious reservations. I would find it very difficult to vote for anything that would have that effect, if I can prove it. I am looking into it and if that is the case, I will not be supporting this resolution. The Government may say "Yes" tomorrow. Look at all the things it refuses, as such. There are other areas that have been forgotten about. People cannot fill their home-heating oil tanks this evening. The Government might say they can go to their local social welfare offices but many people fall between the cracks. They are telling me they are cold at home and are finding it very difficult. They do not have the funding to do that. Plant hire people are not going to get any relief from the recently announced package. The road builders and those in the building sector are saying to me that they have not got it. I have a letter here from the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Organisation, ICSA, representatives of which the Government shamefully locked outside the door the other day. They attended the same protest as I did in Dublin the other day and on that basis, they got booted out. That is not a way to do business. Our way of doing business is to try to talk to people. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, who I wish was still here but she is no longer, was wrong when she said that I blocked people. I went to Whitegate and never blocked anybody. I spoke to people and asked them to step down. I said that if there was a reasonable package, we should step down and work together. I went to Dublin and said the same thing. It was unfair to say that I blocked something but we all say things in the heat of the moment, and I accept that. In the past week, there was a lot of what they call "gaslighting", or whatever, and enflaming the situation. The Taoiseach made a serious mistake - he will not agree with me, as is his entitlement - instead of talking to people. Even if he could not talk to people, he could have easily found someone who would and got around this. There were ways around this. I found that on the first day of the protests in Dublin, the protestors were willing to talk but not on the third or fourth day. People got deeply entrenched and there was no point in trying to negotiate in a very difficult situation. The Minister of State, Deputy Canney, did not help the situation by telling people to use bikes instead of cars. That is fine. He is thinking of a city environment. I would love to think that I could tell people to go to work on a bike in the morning but I cannot tell people to cycle 13 km to work in the morning. Some people where I live are driving 80 km or 90 km per day back and forth to work. They are finding it difficult. The Government is saying to us that the carers of our country are being blocked from going to work. They cannot afford to go to work and that is the bottom line. The Government cannot resolve everything. I said that at each protest. This is a war that is outside the Government's control. The Government said it had given the most. The bottom line is that it has already taken the most.

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I will conclude on that, which is the point the Government needs to remember.

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