I do not think the Minister of State really understands how hard people are hurting at the moment or how disgusted citizens of this country are about the damage being done to their lives by the tax policies of this Government with regard to fuel. I do not think the Government has an iota of understanding. This is one of the most disconnected governments from the real existence of so many people I have seen. There is a chasm between the Minister of State’s experience and that of teachers, nurses, doctors and gardaí working in this country. So many people are forced to work in Dublin, for a start. They cannot afford to live in Dublin because they cannot afford a house there. They are forced to live 40, 50 or 60 km away. Because of that, they are forced to pay massive prices for fuel to commute back and forth on a daily basis. Those individuals - the people who get up early in the morning and make this country work - are the ones who are now struggling. Two-income families are struggling to be able to make ends meet because of the policies of the Government. Let us be honest about what is happening here. There is a view that the Government is a bystander when it comes to the fuel crisis in this country. This Government is the primary engine of inflation in fuel and its cost in this country at the moment. For sure there is a war, but there was a fuel crisis before the war even started. There were 320,000 people in energy arrears before the war even started. The Government was taking 60% to 65% of the cost of petrol and diesel out of people’s pockets before the war even started. The Government has been robbing the people of this country in terms of fuel prices for many years and is looking to increase the price of fuel year-on-year. The Taoiseach accused Aontú of being populist earlier because we are calling for a cut in carbon taxes. He does not get it. The Government just does not understand this. You cannot levy a tax on people for a product they cannot afford. There is a social contract when it comes to taxation. That is why we have progressive taxes. People pay taxes based on what they are able to pay but the Government is levying it on a staple - a product they cannot live without - at a rate they cannot pay. It is levying it as if it is a luxury good and its purchase is a form of conspicuous purchasing. It is not. This is the difference between individuals being able to get to work, or not; businesses being able to function, or not; and farmers being able to produce food, or not. The Government is levying it at a rate where people cannot afford to pay it. I do not think the Government understands that. That is the key problem with its approach to this. We have had an understanding on taxation for many years that we do not over-tax the staples of life, such as children’s footwear and food. Now the Government is going down the road of purposely over-taxing these staples. One of the reasons it is doing so is because it is still imbued with the Green Party agenda of using a stick to get people out of private transport. It is as if the Greens have never left the Government at all. The ghosts of the Green Party are still determining the taxation policy on fuel. I suggest that if the Government wants to get people out of private transport, it should use a carrot rather than a stick. It should provide the public transport that hundreds of thousands of people are crying out for. It should help them to retrofit and get the solar panels on their roofs. People want to get out of fossil fuels - they are dying to do so - but they cannot because of the cost barrier. I listened to Deputy Ó Cearúil on this matter. Most of the world has realised that you cannot keep taxing energy. Europe even realises that it has become flabby and competitive in the last 20 or 30 years vis-à-vis the rest of the world because it is putting so much taxation on energy at the moment. Europe has suffered economically significantly over the last ten years and is changing direction but this Government is the slowest government to change direction on this. He said the Government cannot step in every time prices are rising. The Government is in the middle of the fuel crisis. It took €4.1 billion out of the pockets of people in 2024 in fuel. Carbon tax, which did not exist ten years ago, is now topping €1 billion. The Government’s response to people who have seen the price of home heating oil double in the last four weeks is to give a 2 cent reduction in the NORA levy. That is astounding. It has gone from €1,000 up to €1,750 and the Government’s response is to drop it by €20. In four weeks, it will introduce another carbon tax hike, which will wipe out that 2 cent. The Minister of State must realise that is an abomination. It is an insult. It is a disgusting response to a whole section of society. I am talking about people who do not get the fuel allowance. These are people who are too rich for the fuel allowance but too poor to survive this Government's tax policies.

Sentiment score: -0.12