The people of Ireland have waited for an intervention from the Government to deal with this energy spike for weeks now. To say that today's intervention - this package of measures - is underwhelming is an understatement. In fact, it is a classic understatement. I said earlier today that these proposals are timid and anaemic. I stand over that. The evidence that is presented to us here this evening is the very definition of half measures when people expected the Government based on its previous track record to go the whole hog and to go the full way. There is not any real comprehension at the Government level of the day-to-day problems that people across this country are experiencing in their daily lives. Quite frankly, this was evident in last year's insipid budget where choices were made by this Government. I always make the point that if you want to understand my politics and my philosophy, you should look at my budget and look at what my priorities are. It is worth reflecting on that. We know from last year's budget that burger barons and big builders were favoured over the interests of working people. Why do I say that? It is because an expected indexation of PAYE tax rates and bands for workers did not come. Instead workers now pay for a VAT cut for the hospitality sector that will be introduced on 1 July in the teeth of an energy crisis where people across this country are really suffering. The net effect is that after the budget, people who would have hoped to experience a pay increase have seen that pay increase taken away from them because of the absence of indexation and given to the Revenue Commissioners. People are in an even less favourable position in 2026 than they were in 2025 to absorb any energy spike that may be encountered and - my word - people are encountering it today and over the past few weeks. It was less than two years ago that the Government decided to take the bazooka out and spend billions of euro supporting untargeted, unwarranted and economically illiterate propositions to buy its way to election success. That is what it did. What is the difference between then and now? The difference is that we are three and a half years away from an election. That is the difference. I am intrigued by the justification for some of these measures. I accept that some of them are targeted in the way we would like, for example, the fuel allowance. This is a very good idea and I am glad the Government accepted the Labour Party's argument. We were being briefed that we would have a two-week extension to the fuel allowance. Now it is a four-week extension and that needs to be kept under review. For the record, the Labour Party is happy to support the cut in excise that has been proposed. This is necessary. As the Tánaiste said at the outset, it is important that the value of this is seen at the pumps quick smart. There can be no justification for that not happening. We need to see a price below the €2 psychological threshold reached in the coming days. That is a psychological figure. It is not only psychological but very meaningful for people and we need to see it reached and maintained as prices come down. We also support the intervention on the fuel allowance but outside of the excise cut, there is very little here for working people. The Government and the famed energy task force have proposed nothing to deal with the hundreds of thousands of people who are in long-term energy arrears. They literally cannot sleep at night because they cannot pay their electricity bills and are focusing on that instead of other things they need to do for their families. We need to look again at the prospect of reducing the VAT rate on home heating oil from 13.5% to 9%. I have seen the strained arguments in replies to parliamentary questions recently as to why that cannot happen. Earlier, the Tánaiste mentioned the European Council initiative at the weekend telling EU member state governments to reduce taxes and levies on energy prices to help people and businesses through. That is one way of doing that. We know about the lower VAT rate of 9% on gas and electricity. Further consideration needs to be given at EU level to reducing the VAT rate on home heating oil. Why can we not have a tax credit for working people to assist with energy costs? This is something proposed by the Labour Party in successive alternative budgets and by colleagues in the Social Democrats as well. This would be a smart way of targeting several hundred euro each year at working families who do not qualify for the working family payment and need that support. The volatility we are experiencing in the world at the moment is not going to go away. As the Tánaiste said, this is a very unpredictable set of circumstances. My word, we are performing poorly when it comes to energy security. We got a warning in 2022 after Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. We saw the spike in energy prices, the impact of this on residents and businesses, the strain it put on the resources we have and what we needed to do as an Oireachtas to target supports to people who needed them most. We cannot continue to do that. How many warnings do we need? We need that pivot to decarbonisation and energy security. That means focusing more on offshore and onshore wind energy, making that happen and realising the moonshot moment famously mentioned a number of years ago by former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. We have not reached that moonshot moment. We need to. We need to focus on that and we need to deliver energy security and independence. That is the way to deliver cheaper fuel for the people of Ireland and make sure we are less reliant on the Irans and Russias of this world.

Sentiment score: 0.13