Ní aontaím leis an Teachta. Is éard atá faoi chaibidil ag an Rialtas ná cabhair agus tacaíocht a thabhairt do dhaoine ar ioncam íseal agus do na daoine is boichte sa tír. Sin é an fáth go bhfuil, ó thaobh cúrsaí leasa shóisialaigh de, cabhair agus tacaíocht á dtabhairt againn. Tá níos mó cabhrach agus tacaíochta á dtabhairt don tionscal haulage chomh maith mar tá sé riachtanach ó thaobh cúrsaí geilleagar na tíre. This is a moment of great instability and uncertainty in the world, and the war in the Middle East has created without question the greatest oil supply shock ever in the history of the markets. That is a very sobering and significant reality that has to be taken on board by any responsible government. We have no intention of being reckless or irresponsible with this crisis. We want to be flexible and to give supports to people. Every government is limited as to what it can do in situations like these. All the international advice from the ECB, the IMF and so on is to target temporary, affordable measures because we do not quite know what is around the corner as to how this will unfold, not only in terms of the war itself but also in terms of the Strait of Hormuz and the impact on oil and gas installations that have already been destroyed. There will be a lag time now of a couple of years before some of those are restored to capacity. The wise thing to do, therefore, is to introduce measures of the kind we have introduced today, that are targeted and that give some degree of universal support in terms of the reduction in excise and petrol duties. That is important. Then there is a very specific measure for the haulage industry, which Sinn Féin would not support and which it was warning us against doing yesterday. The reason we are doing that is that the haulage industry is absolutely central to our trading and to our economy. It is extremely important that over the mid-term we make sure structurally that we create a sustainable haulage industry into the future to underpin what is a very strong exporting economy. That is the targeted nature of this. The fuel allowance has been extended for four weeks, which will take us up to 1 May. I think any reasonable person would say that by that stage - yes, climate and the weather change and so on - we will be in a warmer situation. It is logical to target about 470,000 families on low incomes. I know Sinn Féin opposes that. It believes in allocating about €2 billion to €3 billion right now. What do we do in October, what do we do in December, if the consequences of this crisis continue? We have a budget coming up. We want to protect investment in services, education, health and children right across the board. These are real choices we have to make. I am sure the Deputy herself must realise that. It is probably one of the more generous packages being developed across Europe. I do not know what instructions she has given to her own Ministers in Northern Ireland. I think a total of £30 is the only benefit towards upcoming bills that it is giving. It cannot decide where an additional £17 million that is available is to go. Sinn Féin has two Ministers in charge of this brief in Northern Ireland, and I ask the Deputy to compare their performance with what we are doing here. There is no comparison. There has been poor enough leadership from those in Deputy McDonald's party who are in charge of that operation. From our point of view, these are temporary measures. We do need to retain some degree of flexibility in terms of how this situation unfolds in the coming weeks and months.
Sentiment score: 0.03
With the greatest respect, the only party of late that has been courting bankers and developers and every sort of corporate financial operation is Sinn Féin, particularly in the United States, where the party has raised a hell of a lot of money from developers and builders. Spare lecturing everybody else about fundraising from developers and bankers and everybody because Sinn Féin has been doing it on a serial basis for many years in the United States, Northern Ireland, the UK and elsewhere.
Sentiment score: 0.65
Deputy McDonald speaks out of both sides of her mouth when it comes to all of that playbook that she just regurgitates every time there is an event or a crisis in the world. We do not take Sinn Féin's approach. Exactly what we are doing here is targeting our measures on the fuel allowance, which would help poorer families and low-income working families withstand the impact of the increases in home heating oil and other energy products. That has been our focus and, indeed, in the budget it was our focus. The ESRI bears out that we had a very strong budget in terms of the low-income deciles.
Sentiment score: 0.05
You are not leader yet, Deputy. I keep on saying you are not leader of the party; do not be interrupting. The bottom line is that the evidence is there that we looked after the lowest income groups and through the household benefit scheme as well, which was successfully improved as a result of the budget.
Sentiment score: 0.46
I acknowledge that people are under a lot of pressure in terms of the impact of this crisis and the cost of energy as a result of this war. There is no question about that. The Government is limited in how comprehensively it can respond. Governments cannot compensate every single person in society. I am sure the Deputy would acknowledge that. We need a realistic assessment of this and a realistic discussion about it. However, we can try to protect those on the lowest incomes and to protect people in general by providing some supports to reduce the impact of this crisis. The reduction in excise duty does that. It does not address the issue totally, but at least it helps and takes a bit of pressure off people. We fully acknowledge that it does not deal with the scale of the increases in the cost of home heating oil or petrol. The focus on the fuel allowance does help with home heating oil, as does the reduction in the NORA levy. It should be remembered that there is a substantial household benefits package of €420 a year for electricity and gas. The supplementary welfare allowance is available for people in real need. The Minister for Social Protection has spoken to community welfare officers and to his Department to make sure they are responsive to anybody in need. We are looking towards the autumn budget and the development of mechanisms to connect what we do on fuel poverty allowances with arrears. We have to focus and work on developing a direct connection so that we can get those arrears down for people. In terms of the renewable story, Ireland has been very fast in recent years. We are probably the fastest growing in terms of renewable energy. Spain and Portugal have a higher level of renewables. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they managed to get a separate agreement from the EU in respect of the structures governing energy prices on the Iberian Peninsula. There was a lot of discussion about that at the EU Council meeting last week. The Commission's assessment is that gas's connection to the defining of pricing levels is not easily broken. That is a challenge for Europe more generally because it is a key determinant of the overall price of energy. The Deputy will know the four component parts. We have acted on one of those four component parts, namely, taxes and levies. The ECB spoke to the EU Council meeting, as did the chair of the Euro Summit, and they recommended, as per IMF advice, targeted, temporary and affordable measures. They warned that we do not know what is around the corner and therefore have to keep something in reserve in case things deteriorate even further over the next couple of months.
Sentiment score: 0.06
There is a lot of flexible remote working in our economy already and-----
Sentiment score: 0.23
-----particularly in the public service, the degree of remote working in quite significant and prevalent now. The Deputy again attacked the reduction of VAT for hospitality. That supports a lot of minimum wage workers in our economy, people the Labour Party should be supporting and defending.
Sentiment score: 0.20
Not everybody in the hospitality sector is on the minimum wage but, nonetheless, it was about protecting jobs in an important sector of our economy. With changing job profiles with AI and everything else, it is particularly important that tourism and hospitality are protected and looked after, and that is what we did in the budget. In terms of LNG, Deputy Bacik referred to energy security, the LNG facility is required from an energy security perspective.
Sentiment score: 0.57
It is not nonsense. It is rubbish to suggest that we should not put in an LNG facility in this country. It is absolute nonsense in terms of-----
Sentiment score: -0.03
I am sorry; if anything happened the gas connectors linking this country to the United Kingdom, this economy would not survive beyond ten days. That is the reality. That is the advice we received from an energy security perspective. The Opposition has to twist it - not the Deputy personally - but it gets twisted, it gets spun as an anti-climate measure. It is anything but that. It is an energy security and economic security matter.
Sentiment score: 0.27
I appreciate the Deputy raising these issues in a constructive light. It is not just the Deputy that has made the comment that the Government has waited for weeks and weeks. We are in a war for three weeks. We need some perspective here. The Government does not have billions and billions to allocate on a monthly basis, which is the implication one could draw from all of the protestations from the Opposition today. We need a bit of reality and flexibility in terms of the fiscal situation and in terms of thinking out to the end of the year and making sure we have enough in reserve to cushion and to make sure we can support people if things get worse. That is a consideration. We also have to protect services. There are increasing costs in education, in health and in other services, and I am very anxious that we have enough in reserve to protect those also. The easiest thing for us to do would be to announce a €2 billion package today, and people would say that is great, but this is only March. We have to be relatively cautious and responsible, acknowledging that people out there are under a lot of pressure. There is no question about that because of the impact of the war on energy markets and because of the unprecedented nature of the supply shock. That has not yet filtered through, by the way. It has not filtered through globally or to our economy. I would disagree with the Deputy's assessment on the budget.
Sentiment score: 0.02
What we did for child support payments was the most significant - record increases of €8 per week for children under 12, and €16 per week for children over 12. As part of the child poverty unit in my own Department, with the Minister, Deputy Calleary, we have focused on that child poverty package, which is permanent. Today, DEIS plus was approved by Cabinet. We have taken a series of measures that have worked on the child poverty issue and that will bear dividend in the coming years. Of that I have no doubt, because of our focus on those key areas. The working family payment cohort of people who, up to the last budget were excluded from the fuel allowance, have now been included. That is an extra 50,000 working families. That means about 470,000 families or people overall are now benefiting from the fuel allowance. The extension will be welcomed by all of those families as a targeted measure. It is an instrument or mechanism we have within the Department of Social Protection to enable us to pay people and to give them additional allowances to help them to try to cope with the very large increases that have occurred over the last number of weeks. That will take it out to the end of April, in addition to the reduction in excise on diesel and petrol.
Sentiment score: -0.03
The working family payment was generally designed with low-income workers in mind. They are now included in the fuel allowance, which I think is a significant targeted measure by the Government, and the correct one. It is a framework that exists already. This package is about €250 million. I am not sure what the Deputy is saying he would take out. I am not clear on his costings, and I would need to get it costed properly by the Department of Social Protection and others in respect of that but we have an alternative suite of measures that cost about €250 million. In the United Kingdom it is £53 million. If the Deputy goes around the European capitals, he will not see a packet as big as this one. As I said earlier, we have to think ahead in terms of other potential challenges that may come our way in respect of this crisis. It is now only March. We need to be cautious, notwithstanding the pressures that are on people and will manifest themselves in other parts of the economy as well if this continues.
Sentiment score: 0.02
We do have an energy plan. At the European Council meeting last week, there was a very interesting presentation by President von der Leyen, which went back from the late 1970s through every decade to the present day. The one constant was that every energy crisis was a fossil fuel crisis generated through war and conflict with the most recent being the Russian invasion of Ukraine before this war. The Deputy attacked the wind and solar energy agenda and so on. He is actually creating a scenario where there would be more energy dependence into the future and an energy dependence on fossil fuels, which would be a disaster for the country. If this teaches us anything, it is the necessity to double down on our focus and investment in renewables. There are hard choices to make on this. I was in the Dáil recently when a Deputy, in one contribution, complained about a gas generation station, a wind farm and a solar farm in one location. I asked the question: “How are we going to turn on the lights?” We do need a societal discussion about this because the bottom line is we are importing a lot of fossil fuel, which is subject to volatility in the markets and to various crises that can occur. The Barryroe oil field has been a long time - long before 2022 - handled by, or dealt with, within the private sector. It never really bore fruit, even prior to any decisions that we took both as a Government or as an Oireachtas in terms of any new fossil fuel developments. The recent 2025 energy in Ireland report showed that about 41.3% of our electricity demand in 2024 was being generated by renewable sources. That is very good progress. We have made a lot of progress in the past decade or so and beyond. We have a target of 80% of electricity demand to be made by renewables in the near term and to go to net zero out to 2050. We are a renewable success story. That is the trajectory of travel. We receive more of electricity from onshore wind farms than anyone else in Europe. We are among one of the global leaders in integrating variable renewables onto the electricity grid. That is something that runs contrary to the narrative that the Deputy was representing. Regarding the carbon tax, €175 million of that went to farmers through ACRES. In 2026, €173 million is going to the Department of agriculture for farmers. We have 55,000 farmers in ACRES. That improves best outcomes on climate, air and water quality, biodiversity, green agricultural pilots and so on. Deputy Collins would be the very first Deputy coming in if any farmer in west Cork had reduced funding as a result of the carbon tax being removed and he would be singing a different tune if that turned out to be the case.
Sentiment score: 0.08
On the offshore wind, we held the onshore RESS 5 and the offshore Tonn Nua auctions, which have delivered wind energy projects at competitive prices for consumers. The Department expects the five projects that bid into the offshore one auction to be in construction by 2030, marking a new phase in electricity generation in Ireland. The second offshore auction was the first to be held under the new spatial plan for offshore renewable energy development in the south coast designated maritime area plan and so forth. We are making progress. It is challenging. I have established a clearing house within my Department involving industry, regulators and Departments to drive this forward and accelerate it as quickly as we can. I think it is vital for the future of country's economy in terms of that particular agenda. By the way, I never laugh at anything the Deputy proposes or suggests. He has a good old turn of phrase where he says he was laughed out the window, or he was laughed out of something three or four years ago. The point is that we have had a very poor record historically on fossil fuel discovery in this country. We have Kinsale and Corrib. That is about it. Independence in terms of energy in-----
Sentiment score: 0.13
-----this country will be grounded in renewables, wind, solar and battery storage.
Sentiment score: 0.00