Today, 500 litres of home heating oil in Cork cost €900. That is less than half a tank. What the Government has proposed is a €10 cut. How insulting is that? The Minister is an intelligent man. Does he not think that this is insulting to people who are struggling to keep the heating on? Does he accept this is not good enough? If he does not accept it, I cannot believe him. The way the Minister is treating people with home heating oil is horrendous. There are people, especially older people, who are afraid to turn on the heating because they do not know how they are going to pay their bills. The Minister came in here earlier and said the Government is going to write to the energy companies. Forget about writing to them; drag them in here and tell them no more price gouging because price gouging is the same as robbing ordinary workers and people. The minute the war started, they put up the prices even though the price of oil and diesel had not gone up. What is the Minister doing? People are struggling and the Government is giving people crumbs off the table. The Minister needs to get energy companies in here. We have the highest electricity bills in Europe and over 300,000 people in arrears. Does the Minister know what is going to happen on the back of his announcement? More families are going to go into arrears on their electricity and gas bills and people are going to be cold because they will not have money to fill their tanks with home heating oil. People are struggling. A young girl who is going to college said to me yesterday that she is going walk to college because she will not have the money to put diesel in her car. She is going to college and working part time. There are pensioners who are putting extra cardigans on and people who are walking because this Government failed to deliver.

Sentiment score: -0.16