I am glad to have the opportunity to speak again on this very important and emotive subject. While I thank the Government for the positive elements with the increases and the help it is giving to some of the haulage industry, a great portion of hauliers will not benefit from the tax rebate because they do not have a haulage licence. Even the live exporter members who were in our committee a while ago will not benefit from the rebate. They will benefit, of course, from the reduction at the pump, and I asked for that here last Wednesday. The people who are paying at the pump should benefit at the pump. We are told the Government is benefiting by almost €40 million extra each week since the price went up. For the next ten weeks, the extent of what is being spent is around €25 million a week. Of course, we welcome whatever we are getting but the talk on the phone today, and every Deputy's phone is busy, but mine is exceptionally busy today because of the number of people with tractors who are up in arms and who are saying they are going to do this and that and that they will have to be heard. Three cent, when the price of diesel has been increased by 70 cent, is not sufficient and is not good enough. The people with kerosene or home heating oil are also very hurt by this. Two cent a litre for them is not enough either. I spoke twice last night but I am here tonight to ask Government to go back and if there is no way to give a reduction, it must give a subsidy. The Government must do something for these people. We were able to do it for the Ukrainians and for many other things but we have to do this for our own farmers who are producing food. Some of them are small farms and some of them are big enterprises, but they are all paying a massive sum now for diesel. It was 98 cent per litre before the bombs and now it is €1.68. There is no change in that. One fellow told me he had ten tractors and he is a contractor. When he fills them in the morning, it cost €6,500 for one day. That is the extent and amount as they are tractors to do big work. The Minister of State will know, as Clare is no different to Kerry, that since Christmas and before it, no farmer could go outside the gap to spread slurry or to do anything. Most of it is there to be done now, and many fellows are wondering whether they will bother planting the grain now. I ask the Government to get together to come up with some formula for next week. It is more important than anything else to ensure this important sector of our community. There are many industrialists coming and going, and we wish them all the best, but every farmer tends to stay where he is. None of them is going to emigrate and they are not thinking of doing anything else. If they start their farm and get stuck in, they generally finish up. They were proud to get the places they inherited from their parents or grandparents or whatever but they want to hand it back in the same fashion or better than they got it. They want to hand it down to their sons and daughters but they are having trouble with that because of generational renewal problems at present. Many young fellows are now asking why should they be working the weekend when all the fellows they went to college with - because all these farmers' sons and daughters went to college - and all their friends are not working the weekends. When they see something like this happening with fellows going around with their caps in their hands and who do not know what they are going to do, how they are going to continue or pay the oil man, people will stop up. I ask the Government not to let this go farther than next week and to do something positive together to help these people. Some people are saying that because there was no excise on green diesel, they will not get it back. We must give them a subsidy; there is a way around it. There is now 70 cent of a difference since they were working away and farmers were under pressure enough to keep going with all the rules and regulations they have at the present time. The price of diesel was dear enough before it went to that and before it finished up at that price. It was only 39 cent per litre back in 2020, which was a short five years ago. They are worried now that this will be the same, where they could finish up at €1.40 or €1.50, and it will not work that way. I am not fighting. I have no gripe in the world, personal or otherwise, with the Minister of State but I am explaining it to him here and to tell the Government clearly that this cannot continue without being addressed. The cut of 3 cent was a proper insult, as well as the 2 cent cut to the home heating oil. Not everyone is getting the fuel allowance as many people who should get it are not getting it for one reason or another. The home heating oil is all they have. As I have said to the Minister of State previously, the cost of electricity has gone up day by day since the day Bord na Móna was scrapped. We have no control in the world; we have no regulator. There are different ESB companies that are charging different amounts and putting it up by so many percent, and others are bringing it down. There is no law and order with these ESB providers and the regulator must be brought to task. I do not know whether it was by design or whatever but on what I will call the day before last night, all the pumps jumped to €2.28. It is not only one or two here and there, but it is every pump along the road that went to €2.28 and I am worried about that. Did this happen to the Minister of State on his journey here? That is what I have seen. That is very unfair if what I think has happened is happening. I appeal to the Minister of State. We are trying to work together here for the benefit of the country but a whole lot of people are very dissatisfied with what came out of here last night. I ask the Minister of State to address it next week and as soon as possible. If the Government cannot refund or take money off it, it must give them a direct subsidy towards it whereby when they show you a receipt, they will get so much back. I appeal to and urge the Government to do that, on behalf of the farmers and the tractor men all over the country. On another small thing they do, which is not a small thing really, last Sunday, about 50 tractors landed into the sports field in Barraduff to fundraise for the cancer link bus from Kerry to Cork. They do all that kind of fundraising out of their own pockets. We would not have the cancer link bus if it were not for those fundraising efforts, which mean so much to people who get sick in Kerry. The Government should think of that in its deliberations. That is happening Sunday after Sunday, week in, week out. The Government should think of what that means in real terms to real people who are sick. My main focus when coming up here last week was to look for help for hauliers and tractor men. That is the greatest demand I have today. I will be back again next week, asking the same things. I appeal to the Government to work to do something about the price of green diesel and to lower the price of heating oil. It has to be done, one way or another.

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I am against that as well.

Sentiment score: 0.27