The price of home heating oil has shot up by 85% in recent weeks. Last month, the price of 1,000 litres of home heating oil was about €950. This week is retailing for €1,750. This country saw the biggest increase in home heating oil in the whole of the EU. Very few families have the colour of €1,750 lying around the house. Hard-working families, nurses, teachers, gardaí and small business owners simply do not have that money available at any one time. One nurse contacted my office and said she has not been able to refuel her home because of the price of it and her family is simply going to bed early to keep warm at night-time. She said that the family do not smoke or drink. They do not go out and do not get takeaways. She said she is embarrassed because she cannot afford the basic necessities for her children at the moment. She is not alone. At the moment about 2 million people across the country are dependent on home heating oil. In the likes of counties Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim, there is no connection at all to the national gas grid and as a result, many of these homes are locked into that fuel source. What did the Government do for these families? It took 2 cent off a litre of home heating oil. In the jaws of an energy crisis when home heating oil has increased to record levels, the Government’s amazing solution to this has been to drop the price of a litre of home heating oil by 2 cent. A fill has gone from €1,750 to €1,730. It is an atrocious insult to hard-working families in this country. It is an absolute disgrace but it is not the full picture either here because in a few weeks, the Government plans to raise the price of a litre of home heating oil by 2 cent. In the teeth of this hardship on families, the net results of its tax actions in a month will be to marginally increase the tax on home heating oil in this country. Families are crushed by this energy crisis. Small businesses are going to the wall. Carers cannot afford to drive to mind the people they care for. Workers cannot fill their tanks to get to work. Farmers are actually seeing their costs spike while the price of their produce is falling, and the Government’s policy is to increase the net tax on home heating oil. The heart of the problem here is that the Government’s plan is to increase taxes on fuel. For sure, the war in Iran has accelerated hardship on families but the Government was taking 65% in tax on a litre of petrol and diesel before the war. Some 320,000 families were in energy arrears before the war. The price of electricity in this country was at the highest in Europe before the war. The painful reality is the Government is tax gouging families. The question I have for the Taoiseach is: will the Government cut carbon tax on home heating oil?
Sentiment score: -0.10
When prices are surging it is not-----
Sentiment score: 0.00
First, working families do not get the fuel allowance. The working families that I am talking about who are in energy crisis at the moment are suffering significantly from this. Second, the war in Iran is a shocking situation, which has had an enormous effect on the price of fuel but Government taxes have a larger effect on the price of fuel. The majority of the price of diesel, 65%, comes from taxes at the moment. The Taoiseach spoke about the Government’s €250 million package. He should look at it like this. The Government has actually taken in about €140 million in extra taxes because of VAT going up on the higher prices in the past four weeks. Carbon taxes will take in an extra €160 million over the rest of the year. When the two are put together, the Government’s package is smaller than the extra taxes it will take this year. That is an incredible situation. It does not need the carbon taxes at the moment to retrofit. It squirrelled away €10 billion in windfall taxes last year. The Government could use some of that money to invest in retrofitting homes to bring down the cost of deep retrofitting from €40,000 to a lower amount so that people could actually afford it.
Sentiment score: -0.09
It is €40 million a week.
Sentiment score: 0.00
No.
Sentiment score: -0.30
Fuel taxes are not progressive and hurt low-income families most.
Sentiment score: 0.42
Progressive taxes.
Sentiment score: 0.00
The Taoiseach knows that most working families are not in receipt of that.
Sentiment score: 0.00