I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this very urgent issue. Across Ireland, workers and families are being pushed to breaking point. The price of home heating oil, petrol and diesel are spinning out of control and nothing is being done to stop it. We have just come from a meeting with the road hauliers and what was coming across was Government inaction and dithering and the Government not taking action to help ordinary workers and families. When heating fuel costs skyrocket, it is not an inconvenience for ordinary people. Rather, it is profound. It is an immediate strain on already stretched household budgets. As the Tánaiste probably knows, prices at the pumps are now regularly surging over €2 per litre. The cost of home heating oil has almost doubled from €473 to €970, as one constituent told me. For a worker commuting a long distance because there is no bus, for example, in County Kerry if there is no train and no alternative, that is an extra €20 or €30 per week just to get to work. For a family heating their home, it is hundreds of euro more every time the tank runs low. Irish people were already paying some of the highest prices in Europe before this crisis. We are nearly three weeks into the crisis now and what is it that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the supporting Independents can come up with? All this do-nothing Government has done in response is to give a commitment to review the situation and say that it will do something at some stage. Outrageously, the plan is to increase the carbon tax on home heating oil in just a few short weeks. Let me be clear; the carbon tax is regressive. We have been saying it for years. It is a double hit for lower income and rural households in particular. For most ordinary people, switching to an electric vehicle, EV, or a heat pump is simply not an option due to the high upfront costs or local deficits in essential infrastructure. These households are being hit twice - first by rising prices and then by a tax that presumes there are alternatives in place when there are not. The Government's record on the number of EV cars, unfortunately, is like its record on offshore wind, which one Minister described as previous Government members sitting on their hands. They are also sitting on their hands in respect of all the renewable energies. We need relief now. Workers and families need relief. Here are the steps that can ease the pressure. This is an emergency that demands an emergency response.

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