This resolution is very revealing about the Government's approach. Earlier, we had a resolution that introduced inadequate measures, small cuts in excise on petrol and diesel but no price caps, no guarantee, no security for people into the future and nothing to ensure there is not profiteering. Those measures are time limited until the end of May and could be wiped away by the end of the week. Prices could go back down to €2 per litre and then go back up again by the end of the week. It is something but it is also very inadequate, effectively nothing. On home heating oil, it will mean a €20 saving on 1,000 litres when the price has very close to doubled over the past number of weeks. That is insulting to people. The underlying thread we hear from the Ministers is, "Ah sure, we're getting out of the bad weather. People will be grand." They certainly will not be; they are struggling. We have very minimal measures for the general population but then we hear that Resolution No. 2 is a targeted measure. It is a measure which, unlike the ones we voted on earlier that come in tonight and last just until the end of May, is backdated to 1 January and it goes all the way to the end of June. That is fantastic, we think. This must be for the disabled people who were hit by the Government with €1,400 of cruel cuts in the budget. They have been on the streets demanding again and again an emergency disability payment, not the full cost-of-disability payment which they were promised, not even getting back the €1,400 that the Government took off them. It should just give disabled people €400, which is a tiny amount that will go some way to cushion them from the blow, a targeted amount for them. However, when we read the detail of Financial Resolution No. 2, I am afraid we discover this is not a targeted measure for disabled people but a targeted measure for hauliers. They will get an extra rebate on diesel to go back to the start of January and to go all the way to the end of June, but ordinary householders will not. Of course hauliers need support. Of course their prices going up will feed through into the rest of the economy in what people pay for the goods they buy in shops and so on. However, what is the measure to do that? It is obvious. It is the same measure as for everybody else. It is dealing with the issue of the price of diesel. However, instead of actually doing that in an effective way for everybody such that they get the benefit and, therefore, consumers and the population at large get the benefit at the end of the day, the Government has done a special scheme just for businesses. It is very revealing of the Government's approach to this new cost-of-living crisis. I do not think the Government gets it that for ordinary people this cost-of-living crisis comes on top of an existing cost-of-living crisis. People are really suffering. People were already really suffering two months ago. We remember the shocking statistic about four in ten parents skipping or cutting back on meals in order to ensure that their kids have enough to eat. We know there are over 300,000 people in arrears on their energy bills right now. We know that the Government's budget made all of that worse. Despite the misinformation that is put out there by the Taoiseach, we know and the ESRI, the Parliamentary Budget Office and so on will say that the Government's budget made it worse and made it hardest for the poorest groups in our society. That was the impact of its budget: increasing child poverty and increasing rates of poverty, including for older people. The Minister and the Minister of State have woken up to react to that. They are welcome. Let me tell them what the Parliamentary Budget Office said. It said the budget increased poverty rates from 11.7% in 2024 to 13.2% in 2025.
Sentiment score: -0.14
If the Minister of State wants, I will get to him before we finish. The ESRI said that for the bottom 10% the budget would see a cut of about 2.5% in income-----
Sentiment score: -0.14
The ESRI did not say that. I will get the Minister of State the exact figures by the time I finish. The Government's budget - people can check it online - hit disabled people and the lowest income groups the hardest. Let me say what the Government should have done and what we are in favour of doing. We should cap prices. We should give people certainty: €1.75, as was contained in our Bill, for petrol and diesel. Only a price cap can give certainty and security to car-dependent households. The way you do that is you cap the price and then adjust the tax as necessary to ensure that petrol and diesel can continue to be supplied. Then we need to expand the remit of the CRU to investigate petrol and diesel prices and send inspection teams to verify prices at the pumps. We need fuel companies to open their books to the CRU, and those found to be profiteering should be forced to contribute to the price caps by an amount equal to their excess profits. We need universal credits. The Government should just immediately get €500 back into the pockets of ordinary householders. It is the most immediate way to give people relief. That can be funded by a levy on the data centres. The data centres are now using more electricity than all households in this State combined and they are paying half the price for it. Let us fund it in that way. Yes, let us give an extra month of fuel allowance, let us give an extra payment, a double payment, on all social protection payments as targeted measures. Then let us invest in getting people away from fossil fuels. I heard the Taoiseach earlier say that LNG and so on were not contradictory to moving away from fossil fuels. Of course they are. That was the latest demand of Trump at the White House: we want to sell more LNG. The warning signals came and the message should have been heard in terms of Ukraine but it was not. The western world did not do anything to get away from fossil fuels. In this country we have continued on this track of reliance on fossil fuels. The result is that every extra unit of power added by wind has been swallowed up by the data centres, and Micheál Martin wants to go even further with them. No more data centres. Let us make public transport free. Let us invest in retrofitting to get off our reliance on fossil fuels, which is what makes us so exposed.
Sentiment score: 0.09