2026-03-04

As we begin Leaders' Questions, I welcome everybody in the Visitors' Gallery and particularly the girls from Finglas who are here with my niece, Jocelyn, among them. The name of the school escapes me. I am sorry, girls. The Taoiseach will greet them as I am sure will Deputy Mary Lou McDonald.

As a Cabra woman, I extend a particular welcome to all of the girls from Finglas - our neighbours. They are very welcome. Tá fáilte rompu go léir. We are already witnessing a surge in fuel prices in reaction to the US-Israeli onslaught in the Middle East. People across the country are reporting massive hikes in the cost of home heating oil, with prices having increased by as much as 35% in the past number of days. The cost of home heating oil was already high so people really cannot believe what they are seeing. This morning, I was contacted by a 94-year-old woman from Wexford who relies on home heating oil to keep her house warm. Only last week, the price for a half fill of oil from her provider was €464. By midday today, that had jumped to €879. That is almost double the price in just days. This extortionate hike puts this elderly woman under huge pressure but her options are either pay up or go cold. This woman is not alone. Yesterday, people spoke out on the radio about the price of home heating oil shooting up sharply in real time. Heating oil providers have jacked up their prices by hundreds of euro. This is blatant price-gouging and greed. It is a brazen rip-off, happening in plain sight. Of course, the price surge is also hitting motorists at the pumps. People are reporting increases as high as ten cent a litre since this onslaught began. Companies are clearly taking advantage of this crisis to squeeze even more profit from their customers. The Taoiseach is entirely passive on the matter. Yesterday, he said there was no excuse for price-gouging but it is not good enough to criticise price-gouging and then do absolutely nothing about it. By the way, writing a letter to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, and asking for a review of the energy market is really no action at all. It is a cop-out. The Taoiseach needs to pick up the phone and tell the top brass in these companies to stop fleecing people. The Government needs to drop its plan to increase carbon tax in the coming weeks, increases that will drive up the cost of home heating oil even further. Surely, the Taoiseach can now accept it is his job to step in and act with purpose to protect households from these hikes and stop this price gouging. Tá teaghlaigh cráite ag arduithe ollmhóra ar phraghas an ola teas tí. Tá price-gouging agus saint le feiceáil go soiléir ó chomhlachtaí. Caithfidh an Rialtas stop a chur leis an tsaill seo. The Taoiseach cannot do nothing as these price shocks hit home. For too long, the message from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to struggling households has been, "You are on your own". That has to change and change fast. People are under pressure. The Government needs to intervene to help. Will the Government scrap its plan to push up the price of home heating oil even further? Will the Taoiseach tell people today that he will not hike carbon taxes while they struggle to heat their homes? Will he outline what concrete, direct action he will take to end this rip-off and stop the price-gouging? He is left with a clear choice: he can take on these price-gouging companies or he can sit back and force households to take the pain. Which choice will the Taoiseach make?

I welcome the students from Finglas. They are very welcome and I hope they enjoy their day in Dáil Éireann. I hope it may spark and inspire some of them to come in some day as elected public representatives as well. Admhaím go bhfuil teaghlaigh fud fad na tíre faoi bhrú de bharr an mhéid atá ag tarlú maidir le praghsanna, go háirithe praghsanna a bhaineann le fuinneamh. Mar a dúirt mé inné, táimid ag déanamh machnaimh ar an scéal agus beimid sásta cabhair agus tacaíocht a thabhairt do dhaoine mar a rinneamar cheana nuair a bhí géarchéim ann le linn ghéarchéim na hÚcráine. There is a lot of uncertainty out there at the moment and no one should take advantage of that uncertainty to increase prices of energy or oil, be it home heating oil or on the forecourts. We are keeping everything under review in terms of the price situation and the impact on households. In the budget, we took very targeted measures to support people. One of the manifestations of that will be this wee when 50,000 families currently in receipt of the working family payment will receive their first fuel allowance payment and back pay on Thursday, 12 March. Any family on the working family payment will receive back pay of €380. That will help that cohort. That is a measure we took in the budget to include them for the first time in the free fuel allowance. The additional needs payment is also available for anyone in particular difficulty. The Minister for Social Protection has made it clear to community welfare officers to respond in that regard. Prices on the forecourts should not have increased. They can be influenced but typically, it should be three to four weeks after a particular event for prices to be impacted at the forecourts. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has asked the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to investigate the pass-through from wholesale prices to retail prices because we had elements of this in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and what happened there, although there was a longer lead-in during that crisis. Price increases came a bit later in the cycle. The Minister has asked the CRU to carry out an independent review of that and, in particular, the pass-through from wholesale to retail prices in particular. The Minister for enterprise has also written to the CCPC. We met with its officials on Monday and spoke about this particular issue. At the European Council in two weeks, there will be a specific focus on energy pricing. One of the more fundamental challenges is the coupling of gas with renewables in the price market and structure that governs the European energy market.

The Taoiseach has talked about that for a long time.

That is an issue that was put on the agenda two weeks ago but will have an even sharper focus now because of the impact of this crisis on the energy market more generally. We will keep any further measures under review. It is important that the Government's focus has been on targeting and using our resources for those most in need and those who need our supports. We have extended the reduction of VAT. We reduced VAT from 13% to 9% on electricity and gas bills. We are now keeping the rate at 9% until 2030. We will look at this in the broader sense. I will not focus on any particular measure. The Deputy mentioned carbon tax but we will not pull the rug from under farmers, those who are retrofitting and those who depend on the free fuel allowance.

Tá sé soiléir go bhfuil teaghlaigh faoi bhrú, ach tá sé soiléir freisin nach bhfuil an Rialtas ag déanamh aon rud - rud ar bith.

No.

I just heard from the Taoiseach an exposition of the fact he is doing nothing. That has been a real subplot of the entire cost-of-living crisis. It is a Government that is hands off, stands back and just allows households to take the pain. Energy companies, supermarket chains and insurance companies are ripping people off and the Government does nothing to stop them. The Taoiseach talked again about another review. In the name of God, how many reviews is the Government going to do? It is probably, therefore, no surprise that this price-gouging has happened. Why would these companies not jack up their prices? They know they have nothing to fear from the Government. The Taoiseach says the price-gouging should not happen. Then the question is as to what is the Government going to do to stop it and the Taoiseach has no credible answer.

Thank you, Deputy.

I have asked the Taoiseach to set aside the carbon tax increase. Will the Taoiseach do even that small gesture?

The Taoiseach to respond.

How will the Taoiseach tackle these companies which are ripping people off?

The Deputy says it is a small gesture. That is the point. The carbon tax on its own would be a number of cent or whatever, but when we look at the carbon tax collectively, it has supported farmers, in particular, in terms of environmental agri-schemes with approximately €173 million allocated this year to that. We would not have the retrofitting scheme without it because we have ring-fenced it. We give all that back to the people through retrofitting. Then the third pillar is those in social protection. It is fuel poverty that the carbon tax addresses. The money goes back to the people who need it most. It goes back through retrofitting and it goes back to farmers.

Did the Taoiseach hear my question?

Deputy, I told you: do not interrupt, please.

The Deputy asked about carbon tax.

Home heating oil.

Do not interrupt, Deputy, please.

For this woman, the price has doubled in days.

Sorry, the Deputy has asked about it. We have said we are going to take measures-----

The Taoiseach is going to look at it.

The Deputy has a habit of always looking for the knee-jerk reaction to everything-----

Do I? The Taoiseach has a habit of looking for no reaction to my question.

-----and when she did it before-----

Thank you, Taoiseach.

Thankfully, we did not take the Deputy's advice before-----

Thank you, Taoiseach.

-----because it would have been fairly disastrous if we had.

Before I move on, the students from St. Michael's Holy Faith from Finglas are most welcome. I call Deputy Bacik.

Cuirim fáilte rompu go léir. I welcome the students from St. Michael's in Finglas and also students from the City of Dublin Education and Training Board, CDETB, Parnell Square. Ironically, it is lovely to welcome them from Parnell Square on a day when Deputy Marie Sherlock has done so much to secure the future of the Rotunda Hospital in Parnell Square.

It is clearly a day of hyperbole.

Many people in Ireland are now at breaking point from the cost-of-living crisis. This crisis has not just persisted; it has been turbocharged by global instability for sure but also by the Government's policies. Households are struggling on every front, with the price of housing, groceries and energy. Those already in poverty are being pushed even further to the margins and everyone is feeling the squeeze. The costs of everyday essentials have skyrocketed. In five years, butter and milk are 45% more expensive. This is not a statistic. These are the totals that people dread seeing pop up as they check out at the supermarket. People's bills are rising, while salaries stagnate and the Taoiseach is just standing by. The Government stood by while motor insurance crept up, while the biggest health insurers hiked their prices by more than 10%, and now, with Trump and Netanyahu’s warmongering, and the retaliation by Iran and Hezbollah, we are seeing costs being driven even further through the roof. Home heating oil, notoriously, has jumped 40% in a matter of days. One woman, who emailed me to raise her concerns, had to revise her email before she hit "Send". She said that they had put up the price again in the time it had taken her to type the message to me. This is price-gouging, pure and simple. Irish energy bills were already inflated, long before this war. Petrol and diesel prices are climbing, but instead of taking on Deputy George Lawlor's proposed price caps, the Government hides behind working groups and task forces, letting the market run riot and making luxuries out of everyday essentials. People are scared. Morgan McKinley tells us that pay rises have stalled, with wage increases lagging behind inflation, recruitment slowing and living standards slipping. I am helping a man who has taken a second job to try to support his family. He and his wife send their teenager to school with just bread and butter and a banana for lunch, while cutting back themselves. They are not alone in living that hardship. Let us not even start on housing costs. Unaffordable and unavailable, last month the median price for a home in Dublin broke €500,000 and the Government's new rental rules mean an amnesty on rent hikes and an incentive to evict. There are so many notices to quit in Wexford and around the country. In 2022, when Russia unleashed war on Ukraine, the Taoiseach told people to wait for inflation to reduce and when he cut temporary cost-of-living measures, he told people to wait and see. Households in Ireland need a government that intervenes when costs spiral, not a bystander government or a government that shrugs. No one expects the Taoiseach to end world war, but will he act decisively to support people who are up against the wall and will he intervene to support those who are struggling in a cost-of-living crisis?

Of course, we have intervened in the cost of living over the past three to four years. More than any other government in Europe, we intervened with our allocations, both in the once-off cost-of-living interventions that we made for over two years at huge cost, but then with more permanent measures such as the free books scheme, which is a substantial reduction in costs for parents and families of school-going children and the hot school meals in every school across the country, likewise helping families. We acknowledge families are under pressure. Of course, they are. Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the post-Covid period and the weakening of supply chains, there has been an inflationary spiral. It has eased considerably in Ireland in inflationary terms, but the impact on the cost of living and the elevated prices remains for many households. We significantly reduced all the medical expenditures that were there five or six years ago in terms of the drugs payment scheme threshold being reduced and getting rid of quite a lot of hospital charges that people had to fork out. In terms of social protection, we had a €10 increase in the maximum rate of all State pensions from January of this year and likewise, for the jobseeker's allowance. There was the biggest increase ever in child support payments,. For any child over 12, the family gets €16 additional to €78 a week, and for children under 12, plus €8 to €58 a week. Of course, the fuel allowance was increased by €5 per week, but also the numbers of people benefiting went up significantly because we extended it to the working family payment to such an extent that 26% of households are now entitled to the fuel allowance and it is backdated to January. It is not a true story to say that the Government has done nothing or the Government has not intervened. We have also extended the reduced VAT rate on energy bills, from 13% to 9%, and that will be extended to 2030. We have also taken very substantial measures in terms of retrofitting, which will ultimately reduce the costs for households who benefit from that over the long term, and immediately once it is done. Our interventions have been targeted in many areas and we will continue to support households and families. Real wages have increased by 3% over the past 12 months. That is the reality and that is a fact. Members can dismiss that easily through rhetoric or something, but that is the reality. That said, there are still pressures on families. We will keep all of this under review in terms of how this unfolds over the next while.

The Taoiseach outlined measures taken. The Labour Party welcomes any measures that will ease pressure for struggling households, but even the Taoiseach acknowledged that families and households are still struggling, and that not enough has been done to help people, who are now desperately fearful as they see the likely prospect of inflation spiralling again and as they see already, as I have said, home heating oil vastly increased in price. Here is what else the Taoiseach could be doing, because the Labour Party has proposed constructive solutions. The Government could use the powers it has under the Consumer Protection Act 2007 to cap the price of home heating oil, as Labour has urged, instead of just saying it will keep matters under review. The Government could, of course, if it was a government that took climate action seriously, invest heavily in renewables to support people who wish to and, indeed, need to make the transition away from reliance on home heating oil. The Taoiseach speaks about retrofitting, but we have seen simply not enough done to encourage the sort of retrofitting revolution that my colleague Deputy Ahern has called for. Will the Taoiseach take on tangible practical additional measures to support struggling households?

We are investing in renewables to an unprecedented extent. Between 40% and 45% of all electricity generation is through renewables in Ireland today, and approximately 40% through gas. One of the structural problems with this, of course, is across Europe there is a coupling of gas and very often gas dictates the ultimate price. Price caps generally do not work and we would need to consider that very carefully before we would implement such a measure. We will keep everything under review in terms of how this situation unfolds and we appreciate the pressures that are on people. Again, the CCPC is there to investigate and engage with companies and the market to fundamentally ensure price-gouging does not happen and that unfair advantage is not taken of people. We will also continue to engage on that issue as a Government, and we will have further meetings today relating to that specific item.

Denise Whitmore was absolutely devastated when she learned at a routine scan in November 2024 that her baby's brain had not developed and that the condition was fatal. After a lot of consideration, Denise and her husband Mark made the heartbreaking decision to terminate the pregnancy but because doctors could not be absolutely certain her baby would die within 28 days, as is required by current legislation, Denise was forced to travel to the UK for treatment. To say it was not an easy journey is an understatement. Denise was six months pregnant and was bleeding from an additional complication of a low-lying placenta. On the day they were due to travel, their ferry to Holyhead was cancelled. This meant travelling to Pembroke instead, followed by a five-hour car journey to Liverpool. Once they were at the hospital, doctors stopped the baby's heart and Denise prepared to give birth, but she began to haemorrhage. She lost five units of blood, causing her body to go into shock. Doctors were forced to do an emergency C-section, and they had to warn Denise in advance that they may need to do a hysterectomy to stop the bleeding. When Éadha was born, Denise and Mark spent some time with their daughter in the hospital. As if all of this was not hard enough, they then had to think about the legality of getting home. A consultant in Liverpool warned them to put Éadha's body in the boot of their car and smuggle her back to Ireland, but they could not bring themselves to do that. When they got to the ferry, Mark declared they were bringing their daughter home, and they were gripped by fear that they might be arrested. This legislation is inhumane. If it were not for a kind worker at the ferry terminal allowing them to travel, they would not have been able to bring Éadha home to meet her three-year-old brother and the rest of her family. Denise's trauma did not end there. Despite having major surgery in the UK, there was zero follow-up care for her in Ireland. Even when she presented to a bereavement midwife to get counselling, she was told it was not available. Denise and her family were on their own. Every year, 240 women have to travel to the UK to access abortion care; each one with their own story of grief, trauma and sheer horror at what they are forced to go through. It is a complete and utter disgrace. An expert report recommending clarity on the provision of care in cases of foetal abnormality and the end to criminalisation of doctors was published in April 2023. For three years, the Government has ignored these recommendations-----

Thank you, Deputy. The Taoiseach to respond.

-----and the result is hundreds of women like Denise who are forced to travel for care. My question is simple: is the Government going to continue to ignore these women and make them suffer?

I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to Denise Whitmore, Mark and the entire family on the tragic loss of baby Éadha, and the very difficult and traumatic circumstances of both Denise's pregnancy and what subsequently happened with the travel to the United Kingdom, particularly the journey back. As the Deputy knows, the legislation came as a result of the constitutional referendum we had in respect of this issue a number of years ago. The legislation was consistent with commitments given in the debate to the Irish people prior to the repeal of the eighth amendment. It was a contested referendum and various arguments were put forward on both sides. Various commitments were given in respect of how subsequent legislation would be formulated and what it would contain. In many respects, one of the key motivations for a lot of people who voted "Yes" to repealing the eighth amendment was the experience of women who had been through fatal foetal abnormality. I met quite a number of women who told me the harrowing journeys they made to the United Kingdom and back. Certainly, I found it a very powerful, motivating factor for a proper humane response to a situation such as this. Again, there was a lot of contested debate around this; hence what has transpired in the termination of pregnancy Act 2018 and in particular, the section referring to the provision before or within those 28 days of birth. There have been issues out of that as a result of the referendum and Act itself. I do not understand why bereavement counselling was not made available; it should be made available. There should be no excuse for the absence of bereavement counselling in situations such as this. I will pursue that with the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, and the Department, as to what transpired. As regards the wider issue, the Act itself is consistent with the debate and commitments that were given. Section 11, in particular, puts in that provision.

Deputy Cairns to respond.

This will be reviewed by the Government. I thank Denise Whitmore for speaking out because we need to hear her voice and the voice of women in situations like this.

Ultimately, when we voted on repeal, we voted to take women's healthcare out of the Constitution and put it into the hands of doctors, the Members in this House and women themselves. No legislation is set in stone, and everybody who voted on this knows that. A review was also baked into that. With all the other things the Taoiseach has spoken about which people voted on, we also voted that there would be a review. It took five years for that review to happen and a lot of people suffered in that time. Then, we finally got the review and the recommendations were clear: the criminalisation of doctors, cases of fatal foetal abnormalities and the three-day mandatory waiting period all needed to go. The Government has had three years to act on that and it has not. I agree with the Taoiseach that many people who voted "Yes" to repeal, voted "Yes" because of women who needed terminations for medical reasons, yet they are still forced to travel. Inaction on this is cruel. I ask the Taoiseach to act and to act fast. He says the Government is going to review this. Can he elaborate on the timeline for this? Will he will allow a free vote on this in the Dáil?

In our party we have a free vote, and I initiated that well over a decade ago on matters pertaining to life and death. Let us acknowledge that this has been a hugely contested area in our country. It was a major decision by the Irish people, and one I supported, as the Deputy knows, both inside and outside the House, in respect of the change that occurred. The Government will examine the review, and we will revert to the House once that examination takes place. I will consult with the Minister for Health in that regard. It is important to point out about 575 terminations occurred under section 11 of the Act between 2019 and 2024 but the Deputy instance about 240 women who have had to travel to the United Kingdom. We need to hear from the experiences of those women to inform the governmental and political review.

As the Middle East is in turmoil, we are witnessing another spike in the price of fossil fuels, which still power too much of our economy. Our energy system needs to meet three key challenges in the year ahead. It needs to provide affordable energy, which will allow us to travel and warm our homes without breaking the bank. It needs to provide security of supply so we are not at risk of energy shortages in a turbulent world. We need to decarbonise our energy system to address the climate crisis and improve air quality around our homes. The Green Party has always argued that the only way for us to meet these three interconnected challenges is for us to scale up wind, solar and energy storage at pace. One of the big changes between this Government and the previous one is that this Government has identified the use of LNG as a key part of its energy strategy. This is seen not just in the proposal for a State-owned terminal in Clare but in the wider removal of policies like the ban on fracked gas that will serve private LNG providers. I hope the impacts of this war on energy pricing cause the Taoiseach to change his policy. Embracing LNG, as the Taoiseach proposes, fails to deliver affordability. It actually locks us in to the continued cycle of energy price shocks. We have the evidence of this in the spike in gas prices over the last few days. Nor does LNG provide us with security of supply. Qatar's decision yesterday to shut its Ras Laffan gas terminal shows how fickle gas supplies can be across the world. An Irish LNG terminal will leave the US as the main supplier of LNG imports and thereby place our energy security at the whim of the Trump Administration. Of course, LNG is the exact opposite of decarbonisation as the fuel is two thirds more carbon intensive than traditional natural gas according to research from the International Energy Agency. Ireland needs its own energy so we can make our own choices, yet the ORESS 1 offshore renewable energy projects all seem to be stuck in the mud. The State has a target of 5 GW of offshore renewable wind energy by 2030. At this point it looks like the Taoiseach's Government will achieve none of that. We are in a position now, with the decommissioning of the Arklow Bank, where we may actually have less offshore renewable energy at the end of this Government than at its beginning. What is the Taoiseach's best estimate of when we will see the 5 GW of offshore wind delivered? In light of the curtailing of supply and the huge spike in the cost of LNG in recent days, will the Taoiseach reconsider the Government's policy to introduce LNG into our energy mix as it fails all three tests of affordability, security of supply and decarbonisation?

I disagree with the very false narrative the Deputy has put before the House in respect of the Government's position on renewables. It is a deliberately created false narrative by the Green Party in order to present the idea that it is indispensable to climate change. I have to say that strongly because I really reject what the Deputy has said. I think it is wrong and it is deliberately wrong. We are one year in government. Any delays in offshore wind, for example, cannot be laid at the hands of this Government because the Green Party had that portfolio for the last five years, subsequent to 2020. The Deputy must be well aware of the challenges. We are totally focused on offshore wind and getting that out there. One of the changes I have made is to establish a clearing house for offshore wind. I brought industry in. You guys refused to do that for five years-----

No.

You did.

They did nothing.

I had them around the table. The Secretary General of my Department chairs it. I attend it and I chair for the hour and go through it. We have brought in industry and every single Government Department. We have talked to all the various agencies involved as well to look at any generic obstacles that we can remove, or any barriers to accelerate offshore wind. We have carried out an onshore wind revolution in this country over many decades now. Every party that was in government over the last 30 years, and the county councils, have facilitated that. The Deputy should acknowledge that. We have not shifted our focus. I want to get it done as quickly as we possibly can. It is absolutely essential. It is wrong of the Deputy to say that somehow we have moved to LNG as opposed to offshore wind. The evidence does not suggest that. Why did we move to create an LNG strategic reserve? The Deputy should know this too. It is for security. The papers and the files in the Department are very clear. The advices are very clear. Deputy O'Gorman talked about security of supply. Because of security vulnerabilities, if anything happened to our gas interconnectors our economy would be stalled after ten days. That is the advice. We need a security backup. A State-owned strategic reserve facility is being established to give us that backup in the event of malicious or malign forces undermining the gas interconnectors. That is not fanciful. We just have to look at what happened in the Baltic Sea with interference and interventions with various pieces of infrastructure. We know our subsea cables have been monitored. We know the gas connectors were monitored. The Irish Naval Service and UK divers had to inspect them, after a particular ship of the shadow fleet lingered over those gas pipelines, to make sure nothing untoward had happened. That is the reality. The Deputy should not paint that as some sort of shift away from our climate and our commitment to offshore wind. I think that is very unfair.

The Taoiseach has not been able to provide me with any firm sense of when that renewable energy from offshore wind will start to feed into our national grid. What we know when it comes to security of supply is that Qatar has shut off its entire production on the understandable basis of being attacked in one of the most unstable regions in the world. Is that what security of supply looks like to the Taoiseach? The price of LNG shot up by 46% yesterday. Is that what affordability looks like to the Taoiseach? I am not going to make the decarbonisation argument to the Taoiseach, as I am more and more convinced that it is not an issue of particular importance to the Taoiseach's Government any more. On the basis of affordability and on the basis of security of supply, LNG fails the test. It is the Government's policy to hard-wire that failed approach into our energy system. This will leave Irish households vulnerable to consistently higher prices and leave the State vulnerable to energy shocks caused by international events like we are seeing right now.

The Deputy keeps articulating his false narrative, but that does not make the narrative true. It is a dishonest portrayal of the Government's commitment in this area. We are a bit more pragmatic than the Green Party was, I would respectfully suggest. I have great respect for the Deputy and his party in many areas-----

They destroyed the country.

-----but we are far more pragmatic in how we are going to deliver this and get it done faster than would have been the case.

They destroyed it.

Last year the RESS 5 and the ORESS Tonn Nua auctions were delivered and at a very competitive price for consumers with both auctions clearing. I will not go through the specific prices. RESS 5 involves 1 GW of new renewable electricity capacity. The Deputy knows this. A lot of good groundwork was done by the last Government but the Deputy's predecessor knew exactly the timelines as well as everybody else. I would argue that what we are doing now in offshore wind is accelerating it to a greater extent than would have been the case if we had not taken over the portfolio, to be blunt about it. On the gas, it is about security of supply. That is the core issue there. If anything was to happen to current supplies in terms of the interconnector, we would be in deep trouble. The Deputy should at least acknowledge that.