This is a mean Government. We knew it was a mean Government already because we saw the last budget, which was a giveaway budget for the developers, a giveaway budget for Google and a giveaway budget for the fast food giants but it took money out of the pockets of ordinary people and targeted disabled people, in particular, with swingeing, mean cuts of over €1,400 per person per year. We therefore knew this was a mean Government already and we had that in our mind when we were thinking, "What will the Government do when under massive public pressure to do something to protect people from the renewed cost-of-living crisis?" Looking at this proposal, however, this measure in particular, it is hard to imagine something meaner. There is a crisis out there. Close to one in five households uses home heating oil. The price of home heating oil has gone through the roof, almost doubled. Many people are at a stage of needing to fill their oil tank after they have been through the winter but obviously still need to use their heating. The Government's response to the surge in oil prices caused by Trump and Israel's imperialist wars in the Middle East is to take off 2 cent per litre. This will then be wiped away in a month and a half by an increase in the carbon tax. It is hard to imagine something more mean and inadequate. People will get €20 off for a full fill of home heating oil. Instead of paying the guts of €2,000 they might pay €1,980, so €20 off. I do not really know why the Government is bothering because it is so utterly inadequate in resolving the crisis that people face. We know that people have entered into a new cost-of-living crisis that has come on the back of an existing cost-of-living crisis. We know the impact of that. Four in ten parents are either passing up meals or reducing their portion sizes so their kids can eat. This is incredible in one of the richest countries in the world in 2026. Over 40% of renters are in poverty or are at risk of poverty and over 300,000 people are in energy arrears. How does all of that translate into people who are using home heating oil? A person cannot go into arrears on home heating oil. People cannot fill their tank and say that they will pay the supplier later. They have to pay them to get home heating oil. What all that means is that people do not fill up their tanks and they do not heat their homes. It means people, in 2026, living in cold homes, struggling to get by in cold homes. This will be predominantly poorer people and older people at this time when the Government has a massive budget surplus and refuses to use it to protect people. It is incredible. It stands in stark contrast to what went through last night for the hauliers where the Government backdated the reduction to 1 January, forward dated it to the end of June, while any of the measures being talked about for ordinary households are ending much sooner than that and none of them is being backdated. Fundamentally, what does his come down to? Why is the Government taking this approach? There are two reasons. One is the Government represents those who profit from the various crises such as the housing crisis, the cost-of-living crisis and the health crisis. The second is that the Government is tied to the idea of the market. It cannot use the massive financial resources that we have to protect people because that would mean interfering with the market. The fossil fuel market that the Government is responsible for keeping us so reliant on is not working for ordinary people. Now is the time to interfere with the market in a major way to protect people. The answer here is so clear. It is in our Bill that we introduced two years ago to provide price controls. On the issue of home heating oil, in our Bill, there would be a €1 per litre price cap. The cap would be €1.75 a litre for petrol and diesel, 25 cent per unit for electricity and 8 cent per unit for gas. That is the answer, combined with giving energy credits to people paid for by the data centres and targeted measures for disabled people, those on fuel allowance and social protection payments. The core of it is to say, "We are going to set the price and we are going to give people certainty." Then we ensure that the price is met and that the flow of petrol, diesel and home heating oil continues by doing two crucial things. One is to empower the CRU to ensure profiteering is not taking place with people taking advantage of this crisis as they took advantage of the previous one. The second is to adjust fuel taxes accordingly to ensure that fuel can continue to be supplied. That is the answer and that is what would give people certainty at this moment. The other thing we need to do is get away from our reliance on fossil fuel. There are also longer-term issues. The Government should please stop allowing more and more data centres. Please do not have the Taoiseach going to Donald Trump and the US and saying data centres are our priority when it has emerged that fewer than 2,000 people are employed in data centres, which use more electricity than all the homes in the State combined. Let us have State investment in renewable energy and a renationalisation of the energy system to give people affordable electricity and to have a rapid transition. There are immediate things that could happen. We have been calling for free, frequent public transport for a long time. The Government might not be able to, at the drop of a hat, get the frequent part or provide for the expansion that we are calling for, although there are buses and storage that could be brought out. However, we could immediately have free public transport, or at the very least, if the Government will not do that, a 50% cut in public transport fares. People are struggling to get the money to put the petrol or diesel into their car to get to work. They should be given the option of getting on public transport at a significantly reduced rate, which would also create the habit in people of knowing that they could use public transport. These are the kinds of measures that we need to have immediately to break our reliance on fossil fuels.

Sentiment score: -0.01