I understand an amendment has been tabled to this section.

Sentiment score: 0.00

Okay, that is fine. Well, it is not really fine but I accept the ruling.

Sentiment score: 0.50

I understand. The timeframes have been so tight, given the chaotic way the Government brought this forward, despite the fact it had four weeks to deal with this issue of support for workers and families in the middle of what was already a cost-of-living crisis. It is important to remember that, before the fuel crisis was brought on by the attacks in Iran and the impacts of the attacks Iran has launched in the Middle East, we had a cost-of-living crisis. Many families and businesses were already pushed to the pin of their collar. The real challenges people are facing in terms of just meeting basic necessities have been well rehearsed. I have heard the Tánaiste talk at length about his new idea for a savings scheme and how the State can help people to save and all the rest of it. That will be great for some people by allowing them to get more tax breaks for savings they have. However, a whole group of other people are asking me what planet the Tánaiste is on. Some of them are among the 320,000 people who cannot pay their electricity bill. Their cupboards are bare in the evening when their children come in hungry. We have a Minister for Finance who is talking about how we can generate more wealth and how the State can support that generation of wealth through tax cuts. The second debate that is taking place is about how we can allow the very small proportion of people who have an inheritance above €400,000 to keep more of that money for themselves. It is a type of parallel Ireland, with a divide between the haves and the have-nots. This motion is about excise duty. The Government is being forced, after four weeks, into acting on the issue, which it did not want to do. It is moving from a position where it was going to monitor the situation, with no knee-jerk reaction, blah, blah, blah, to a point where, after we tabled legislation to cut excise and support workers and families, as well as transport operators and hauliers, it is being forced to bring forward some type of proposal. The resolution the Government has brought forward is a half-measure. I completely and utterly acknowledge that we need to support hauliers. There are two ways of doing so. One is by increasing the diesel rebate scheme payment from 7.5 cent to 12 cent. That would mean hauliers having to pay the full whack at the pump and then wait until the end of the quarter to make a return and get the money back from Revenue or offset it. The other way of doing it is to reduce the excise duty, which means that when the hauliers rock up to the petrol station or buy diesel themselves in their yard, they get the reduction there and then. The second is the more appropriate way, with the reduction in excise automatically given at the pumps. Crucially, it not only gives the reduction to the haulage company and transport operator but also to every person who has to put petrol, or in this case, diesel, into his or her car. That is the measure that should be brought forward. It is a way to support hauliers, transport operators and the general public. However, it is very clear the Government does not want to provide that additional support to the wider public. It is a serious error. I was sent an image an hour and a half ago when people were looking at the vote going on in the House and seeing that every single TD who supports Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents in government voted to oppose a reduction in the maximum amount of excise on diesel and to oppose removing excise on home heating oil. The image I was sent, taken today, was of a forecourt showing a diesel price of €2.35. The message under the image said "What planet are these guys living on?". That is the sentiment I am hearing right across the board, namely, that the Government simply does not get it. My amendment has been ruled out of order and I accept that ruling of the Chair. It was intended to ensure that the support hauliers and transport operators need is provided to them not in a delayed way, through a rebate, but immediately by cutting excise at the pumps. By doing that, we would provide the support for every carer, every person with a disability, every worker driving to work tomorrow morning and every commuter who has to travel by car tomorrow. That is the way it should be done and it is what our amendment proposed to do. As I said, I welcome any support for the haulage sector but there was a way of doing this whereby the support would not be limited to just one sector. It should have been provided for all but, unfortunately, the Government simply does not understand the cost-of-living pressures people are facing. If it got the issue, it would not have introduced the budget it did last year, with a total allocation of €9.5 billion that still left workers and families worse off than they were before it. The Taoiseach claimed the ESRI keeps on saying that the lowest two deciles were the greatest beneficiaries of the budget. In fact, the ESRI report says they lost the most as a result of budget 2026 because of the withdrawal of cost-of-living supports. I ask the Minister to have a word with the Taoiseach and ask him to stop gaslighting the public by saying the opposite of what everybody knows is true, which is that they are worse off now as a result of what the Government did in the budget.

Sentiment score: 0.06