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been a bad week for the Government; it is been a good week for people power. The fuel protests caused the resignation of a Minister of State and the sudden appearance of the young Turks of Fianna Fáil. Those protests led to the majority of the Government being … Government will ignore your demands, no matter how reasonable or justified they are. The fact that five years into a cost-of-living crisis the Government is still ignoring the demands of workers, carers and disabled people on the cost of living is truly outrageous. Prices have gone

There are many people still trying to recover from the impact of the high energy costs incurred as a result of the Ukraine crisis. The ESRI has advised against the approach of introducing measures that are not targeted. It has shown that the last time this approach … just a two-month cut. The Social Democrats have consistently supported carbon tax because we understand we need to move away from fossil fuels and fossil fuel subsidies and ensure people who are least able to do so can transition away from those fuels. The revenue collected from

people are very angry about that. We are talking about the fuel allowance, but still 1.5 million people do not get fuel allowance. They are the squeezed middle. They are the people who get up early in the morning and work in this country to put bread … stop the charges from the toll bridge for a while. There are ways and means around facing the crisis we are in right now. Let us be honest: public transport, where it is being delivered, is fine. For a number of routes in my own constituency

mentioned, are the same people facing increases in their mortgage, rent, insurance and grocery payments. Everything is going up, including the price of fuel. Meanwhile, the Government says the support these people need is €5 per week. I will remind the Tánaiste who we are talking about … Fianna Fáil. All their talk about cutting the cost of childcare and third level fees as well as supporting people through an energy crisis has disappeared like snow off a ditch and been replaced with minimalistic approaches. That is what people saw in this budget because the Government

people of Ireland. If it applied a fixed price tax, running from budget to budget, it would have the same tax revenue from fuel that it had last year and the year before on a fixed tax price. If there were any increase, the person would have … measure for the agriculture industry which is producing food? There should be a no tax policy on that sector at a time of crisis. That is all I am asking. The Government cannot see that. It is putting everyone here at risk and into poverty

money in their pockets and will have to pay out more. Working families will pay more tax. Commuters will pay higher prices for fuel. Older people will be worse off in terms of purchasing power. Families will have to pay more for heating their homes and will face … They say it is simply not viable for them to build. Having builders at home doing nothing in the middle of a housing crisis is incomprehensible. If the Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue, thinks the €8,000 benefit just for apartments will effect radical change in relation

impact of this across a whole litany of failures that face children every single day, including record child homelessness and the CAMHS crisis. Children are waiting unconscionably long times for disability assessments. This Government is breaking the law on therapies. I could also mention scoliosis and spinal waiting … core welfare and child income supports, and introducing targeted measures for low- and middle-income families. We would cut family bills by extending fuel support to low-income working families, moving all prepaid meter households and expanding free hot school meals, schoolbooks and school transport. Communities need

That has only got worse since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the more recent war in the Strait of Hormuz and related fuel price hikes, which also push up the price of doing business. We would want to be careful, especially in the scenario of these conflicts … undersold things from the point of view of what we got for the State. That was in the context of a global economic crisis with the troika putting pressure on us. If the likes of IDA Ireland will take on more risk by getting involved, hopefully

accountability matters, it will not in itself feed a starving population. The humanitarian situation in Sudan is catastrophic. Over 20 million people face crisis levels of hunger and aid agencies are warning of famine in several regions. Access for the UN and NGOs remains dangerously restricted. Bureaucratic obstacles … sides in this war. We know that Russian-linked networks, including successors to the Wagner Group, have profited from Sudanese gold and helped fuel instability. We also know that without co-ordinated diplomacy, outside powers will continue to hedge their bets, prolonging the conflict rather than helping

mark and setting up businesses but we need more supports for those people. What happened yesterday and certainly what happened during the fuel protests should have been anticipated and foreseeable but it was not, unfortunately. The Government's priorities and its focus need to change urgently. It needs … that yesterday. It is a very strong message being sent to the Government. These are public servants who carried us through crisis after crisis. If we look back at the financial crisis, these public servants carried us through. They carried us through the pandemic. They carried us through

with that fury is come to a house fire with a can of petrol. Let us go back to the week of the fuel protests. Monsignor Micheál Martin came out to lecture the nation followed by Colonel O'Callaghan saying that he was going to send … represent in Limerick do not need a restatement of budget 2026 from this Government. They need action on the cost-of-living crisis. Their groceries have gone up, their energy bills have gone up, their rent has gone up, and their mortgage interest rates in many cases

rents, not facilitating them to rise even further. Rents are already out of control and renters are drowning in a cost-of-living crisis. Yet, the Government's response is to tear up what little protection remains and hand a gift to big institutional investors. At the centre … whatever rent is demanded, no matter how extortionate. How are parents expected to absorb this on top of the food, fuel, fees and childcare for younger children? How many students will be priced out of education altogether? I move on to the figures for tenancies in County Mayo

climate denier. A councillor in Kildare, Tom McDonnell, said women need to breed more. That is his history. He is blaming this crisis on people in IPAS centres rather than Donald Trump and Netanyahu and the imperial adventures they are engaged in. Then there is reportedly a character … right channels being used to promote the protests and far-right individuals controlling WhatsApp groups and pages, apparently, such as the Dublin fuel protest page. These are people who have absolutely nothing to do with rural contractors. One of them lives in Dublin 15. I know her. These

called on the Government to deliver effective measures to tackle child poverty. That means targeted and universal measures. The cost-of-living crisis has brought so many pressures on so many households. Many who never thought they would be in this situation now find themselves there because … payment this year, along with other targeted supports. The Government should have doubled the back to school payments. It should have extended the fuel allowance by nine weeks. That would have given people an extra €297. Instead, the Government has only increased fuel allowance by €5. That

fact in place. One of the measures the Government brought in was to increase the carbon tax, which has increased the cost of fuel on families, not made it any cheaper. The Tánaiste's approach is that his head and those of Government representatives are in the sand … from him about what they should do. The Government's head is in the sand when it comes to the cost-of-living crisis

kind of money or capital put away who will benefit from cuts in wealth taxes. What money they have is going on fuel bills, crèche fees and the cost of caring. Students continue to face extraordinary pressures from fees, rent and transport and food costs. These pressures … each child attending college. There is an extraordinary number of vacant and derelict buildings in Ireland. In the midst of a housing crisis, this is like hiding food in a famine. The Government's announcement yesterday does not go far enough in addressing the crisis of vacancy

costs are just skyrocketing. Unfortunately, we will see a lot more of that happening. The initial impact of this energy shock is on fuel, on the petrol and diesel pumps and on green diesel but in a number of months, it will move into gas prices and electricity … they need to be targeted because we do not have an endless bucket of money and we do not know how long this crisis will go on for. It could go on for years. We need to protect our resources while protecting those struggling the most. We have

opportunity to cut the price of oil tonight. The facts are very clear. People cannot pay their bills. They cannot afford to put fuel in their cars. They cannot afford to put oil in their tanks. That has happened on the Minister of State's watch … this. Every single year, we have a discussion in here about pensioners who are struggling to heat their homes. That started before this crisis. The numbers of pensioners in poverty, in insecure housing and in homelessness are all increasing. There is certainly going to be a serious rise

households in this country in fuel poverty. It is incredible that nearly half a million households in this country are in fuel poverty. The prices of electricity are extremely high. Energy prices in Ireland are three times the wholesale prices. That is one of the biggest gaps … involved in super-normal profits in terms of its revenue. The ESB made €706 million profit last year in a cost-of-living crisis. That is an incredible situation. Even the pricing of electricity happens within this State as a function of the dearest element of the production

State's predecessor speaking about delivery and the measures that have been put in place. These measures came as a reaction to the crisis that brought people onto the streets and brought huge turmoil to the country for almost a week. Only then did Government wake … should simply do what a sensible Government would do and look at bringing down the price at the pumps for everybody. Everybody uses fuel, including people going to work and families bringing children to school or who are dealing with a person with a disability and who have

people who have emailed me over the past few weeks and shared their own personal stories of how the cost-of-living crisis has been suffocating their lives. However, they have been suffering before now. It has not just been because of the war. They have been suffering … were grown men who cried because their businesses were going under. The political decisions of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have only added fuel to their fire. I stand with the ordinary people of Ireland, who have absolutely no confidence in the Government. The volume of emails

storm means something serious. We all experienced Storm Éowyn and its aftermath. One thing we know for certain is that the climate crisis is worsening and that the frequency of climate-induced natural disasters is increasing. Storm Éowyn brought the west of Ireland to a halt. That happened … stand up to the big polluters. It could have introduced a pollution tax on private jets and ended our reliance on fossil fuels by investing in strong public renewable energy infrastructure. Instead, it has pushed the cost of climate measures onto workers and families through regressive and divisive

facing as a result of high energy costs. I have listened intently to the contributions this evening. I assure Deputies that the current crisis is of deep concern to the Government, as has been articulated very well by Government colleagues and, to be fair, Opposition colleagues this evening … ongoing developments in global energy markets. The group reviewed current supply and pricing conditions for oil, gas and electricity and heard from the fuel industry representative body. It was noted that appropriate contingency arrangements were in place across the energy sector. I have also written to retail electricity

because Independent Ireland would prefer people to blame immigrants for the housing crisis, rather than the landlords who profit from the crisis? People Before Profit want price caps on energy to give people certainty about costs. To do that we need to bring our energy system back into … that are being decimated as we speak. One bit of the Government’s countermotion that really stands out is the acknowledgement that "fossil fuel dependence, especially imported fossil fuels, is a major economic vulnerability;". I agree but this morning’s EPA report shows the Government has no interest

here to Leinster House for the same reason we are talking on this today, for the road hauliers. At a time of crisis in this country, they travelled the roads to make sure that we had food and energy in this country. I have a letter from Martin … when I brought the truck in here, to 2025, the overall increase in the cost of equipment has been 40%. Government taxes on fuel are 89.56% up since 2021. Commercial vehicle roadworthiness testing, CVRT, has seen a 19% increase. Tolls have seen a 13% increase. The minimum wage