Even before the Israeli and US illegal and bloody aggression against Iran and Lebanon, there was a cost-of-living crisis in this country that the Government was not acting in any serious way to address. We already had electricity prices that were approximately 25% higher than the rest of Europe. Gas prices had doubled over the previous five years. We have seen the price of groceries, etc., increase very significantly. In all of those areas, of course, massive profits have been recorded by the energy companies and the supermarket chains, and then we get this. The failure of the Government to condemn in clear and unequivocal terms Trump's bloody and illegal war is mirrored in the failure of the Government to seriously address the economic and financial consequences of their bloody warmongering on ordinary people, because not only are they raining down death, destruction and fire on the people of Iran, Lebanon, people of Palestine and the whole region, they are costing every person in this country money and the Government cannot even bring itself to condemn them and, indeed, continue to allow the US military to refuel at Shannon Airport. It is shameful. Would the Tánaiste let Putin into Shannon Airport? Of course he would not, and rightly so, yet the Americans are allowed to prosecute their war. What the Tánaiste has offered here is better than nothing but it is late in the day on top of an existing crisis. What we have proposed is that the Government should help people with their arrears by giving them a €500 energy credit and introduce price controls to hold down petrol and diesel prices at €1.75 a litre, to hold down home heating oil at €1 per litre and to reduce the kilowatt-hour charges for gas and electricity.

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Can this be done? It is being done elsewhere in Europe, in the Czech Republic-----

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I have five seconds left-----

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-----but now I do not, thanks to your interruption.

Sentiment score: -0.60