Fiscal Planning Framework for Economic Certainty: Motion [Private Members]

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— the sectors in the Irish economy such as farming, fisheries, construction and more generally small businesses and households have in recent years been repeatedly exposed to severe economic shocks arising from major international events outside the control of the State, including the Covid-19 Pandemic, the war in Ukraine, instability and conflict involving Iran and the wider Middle East, and ongoing international trade disputes and tariff wars;

— these events have contributed to sudden and dramatic increases in the cost of fuel, electricity, home heating oil, fertiliser, feed, transport, insurance, construction materials and essential consumer goods;

— the frequency and unpredictability of such global disruptions have created major uncertainty for family budgeting, business planning and investment decisions across the Irish economy;

— the current approach of Government has largely been reactive in nature, relying on ad hoc emergency interventions announced after price shocks have already inflicted financial damage on households and enterprises;

— while emergency supports introduced in recent years provided temporary relief, the absence of a clear and transparent framework has created uncertainty for workers, families and businesses attempting to plan ahead during periods of economic instability;

— sectors such as agriculture, haulage, fisheries, construction, hospitality and small retail are particularly vulnerable to sudden increases in fuel and operating costs, while ordinary households remain exposed to spikes in home heating, electricity and grocery prices;

— a proactive national framework for economic resilience and emergency fiscal planning would provide certainty, confidence and stability, by clearly setting out the measures that would automatically be considered or triggered during future crises; and

— such a framework should recognise that the State cannot prevent global crises from occurring, but can ensure that Irish citizens and businesses are not left without clarity as to how Government will respond when such events arise;

recognises that:

— certainty and predictability are essential for sustainable household budgeting, business continuity, employment retention and investment planning;

— businesses and industries require advance visibility regarding the potential activation of supports, reductions or temporary relief measures during periods of severe inflation or supply disruption;

— a transparent, trigger-based system would strengthen confidence in the Irish economy and reduce the uncertainty caused by improvised and delayed policy responses; and

— fiscal planning must move beyond crisis reaction and towards structured preparedness; and

calls on the Government to:

— develop and publish a "Fiscal Planning for Economic Certainty Framework", setting out predetermined economic support measures and response mechanisms, to be considered or activated during major international economic shocks;

— establish transparent trigger points, linked to measurable economic indicators including, but not limited to:

— fuel and energy price increases;

— inflation thresholds;

— supply chain disruptions;

— agricultural input cost spikes;

— international trade restrictions; and

— exceptional transport and logistics cost increases;

— outline, in advance, the range of temporary relief measures that may be introduced when such trigger points are reached, including:

— temporary reductions in excise duties on fuels;

— temporary reductions in Value Added Tax rates;

— targeted reliefs for the transport, farming, fisheries and small business sectors;

— temporary reductions or waivers in commercial rates;

— home heating oil and household energy supports;

— supports for low- and middle-income households facing exceptional cost-of-living pressures; and

— emergency liquidity and working capital supports for vulnerable industries;

— ensure that any framework introduced provides sector-specific certainty for strategic domestic industries, including agriculture, fisheries, haulage, tourism, retail and construction;

— provide for annual review and updating of the framework by the Department of Finance and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, in consultation with representative bodies, trade unions, SMEs, farming and fisheries organisations;

— prepare and publish annual stress-testing assessments, examining the resilience of the Irish economy to future international shocks and price surges; and

— report to Dáil Éireann within six months, on the establishment and implementation of this framework.

This Private Members' motion is about the cost of doing business in Ireland. It involves sectors in the Irish economy such as farming, fisheries and construction, all general small businesses, every person working in this country, and the shocks arising from events outside of this country. What we are looking at here is a case of fail to prepare, prepare to fail. A definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again when there is no change. It is a form of madness. We had Covid. After that, we had the Ukraine war. Now, we have the war in Iran. Every time something happens, the Government reacts but it is not proactive. We now know that, in the world in which we live, shocks are going to come all the time. It might be every three or four years. Previously, it was a cycle of ten years when different things happened, but now it is getting more frequent and this Government has learned nothing from this. It comes in with packages after people have had to protest because they are in desperate situations. Small businesses are closing their doors. The minimum wage is going up but the person on the minimum wage gets nothing extra because inflation has passed the minimum wage and the consumer ends up paying for the same thing over and over again. Who is the winner in this? It is the Government.

I attended a meeting of the Committee on Budget Oversight, of which I am Cathaoirleach, yesterday. It was a two-hour slot and the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, and the Minister for public expenditure, Jack Chambers. The latter had all of his Department behind him. It worked out that I was left with 40 minutes in which to speak at the very end, although that did not work out for them. I asked them different questions and I wanted to see how the Department of public expenditure was working with regard to accountability. I wanted to know who was held accountable for doing something wrong. I mentioned the national children's hospital. The Tánaiste was the person who signed off on the children's hospital, which is €1 billion over budget. Has anyone been held accountable for that? The answer is "No". Has anyone in the Department been held accountable for giving bad advice? The answer is "No", but if the Government goes to the electorate tomorrow morning, it will be held to account. When are Ministers in this Cabinet going to stand up to their Departments and make them accountable for bad advice?

What I see is this Government on a railway track. The problem is that it goes from A to B on the track, but if there is a difficulty in the middle, it cannot seem to negotiate that. We have to stop the train. We have to do something. It just goes from A to B. It is a case of tunnel vision with no change. Shocks happen to businesses every time something happens.

What could the Government learn? I asked questions yesterday of this Government. I asked whether it could try a cap on fuel costs? I asked whether it could try one sector to see whether we could introduce something, but I was told we could not because something would then have to do without, but the Tánaiste and Minister did not realise why I was asking that. I wanted to see their mindset. They are following the same rhetoric all the time. If you follow the same thing all the time and it does not change, it is a sign of madness. The madness is that the people in Ireland suffer, yet there are people making bad decisions all the time and getting away with it. If I ran my business the way this Government is running the people's business, I would not be in business, but when you do something wrong in a Department or Government, you get rewarded. You get shoved to a different job if you do something wrong and we end up with failure after failure being rewarded within Departments. It is a proven fact. Look at Uisce Éireann. Look at the set-up of it. It has not delivered but it costs the country billions of euro.

I do not need all this paperwork in front of me because I understand the problems.

I asked the Minister, Deputy Chambers, yesterday about how we might go about introducing something. He told me a fund would have to be put away year after year to allow for shocks. Let me provide him with a little education. I look at the young people in the Gallery and it reminds me that if we want something in life, we must save for it. I guarantee that when the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach wanted things throughout his life, he saved up to buy them. If something went wrong, he had a rainy day fund. Five years on, the Government has not learned that instead of panic when something happens, we need the rainy day fund to come out. We need capping systems whereby if something hits a level, measures are introduced without the big television announcements and Ministers fighting with each other trying to get money for their Department from another Department. In the end, when something is given to the public, most people do not get it and it is all held up in administration.

Construction costs have gone up from €120 to €200 per square foot in five years. That means the Government take from the VAT rate of 23% has increased. In addition, it is getting more from the 13.5% VAT on labour. I asked Department officials at the budgetary oversight committee yesterday for figures on the increase in VAT intake. I was initially told it had increased by 6% this year but before we had finished our slot, it had dropped to 3%. A huge panel of departmental officials were in front of me yesterday and they could not give me an answer. The figure went from 6% to 3% in the space of 40 minutes.

Shocks are going to happen and Ireland will be the first to feel them. The fund we have asked the Government to put away for a rainy day should be based on a capping system and should be ready to be rolled out to the public when something happens. The Government introduced a scheme for the agricultural sector that was to give people 12 cent, before then announcing it was based on the previous 12 months' figures. That meant the 12 cent came down to 8 cent. What the Government could have done was implement two half-yearly slots. There are people who do silage bales in one part of the year and tillage in the other part. There are two different sectors. Not everyone who does silage, baling, hay and so on does tillage. There are also a lot of companies doing plant hire operations and agricultural work that do not qualify under the scheme even though their staff are out cleaning dykes, stretching ditches and all of that type of work.

The Government then said it would introduce a scheme to give fuel costs to the transport sector and that it would only deal with the Irish Road Haulage Association. The latter represents 17% of the transport networks in this country. It does not reflect the position of 100% of operators. I agree with what the association got but it would not have secured it only for the people of Ireland standing up and telling the Government there was no other option.

What does the Government need to learn from the debate on this motion? It must learn that it needs to be proactive in putting the funds away now. Come the next election, it will pay for the billions of euro it has lost through bad management and the bad advice it received. The Department will not learn. Maybe it is time to introduce something to investigate how much bad management and bad advice to the Government costs the State. We need to see where accountability lies for bad advice given to the Government that makes every person in this country suffer, regardless of his or her business. That is what we are trying to achieve. When I said this yesterday, the response was that they do not know how to get off the railway track. We must look at this issue and the measures we are proposing must be implemented. Doing the same thing over and over again is a sign of madness.

Deputy Michael Collins

I thank John Campbell and Marc Nolan for their assistance in putting together our motion. We have brought it forward because people across the country have been pushed to the edge. The only reason we are now having serious conversations about costs is that ordinary people had to take to the streets to be heard. The recent fuel protests did not happen by accident. They happened because people felt ignored and because workers, families, farmers, fishermen and small business owners simply could not take any more. It took that level of anger and frustration for the Government finally to recognise how severe the situation had become. That is the hard truth.

When we talk about the cost-of-living crisis, let us talk about the real numbers people are dealing with every single day. Food is one of the basics. A sliced pan now costs €1.65 to €1.70. People are paying €2.40 to €2.50 for 2 litre of milk. A pound of butter is pushing €5 after rising by almost 50% in five years. A simple shopping basket of bread, milk, butter and another few basics has quietly but steadily increased week after week. Food prices have been rising by 4% to 6% every year, with groceries inflation running close to 7% recently. This means the weekly shopping that previously cost €100 now costs €130. For many families, there simply is no more room left in their budget.

However, the pressure does not stop at the supermarket. We have seen diesel and petrol hitting €2 per litre, crippling commuters, hauliers and anyone who depends on a car. Home heating oil costs between €1,200 and €1,500 for a standard fill, which is a bill many simply cannot afford. Some householders have seen their electricity and gas bills double, forcing them to ration heat and power. For the farmers and fishermen who produce our food, fertiliser costs double at times, feed prices are climbing sharply and input costs have become completely unpredictable.

This is not pressure; it is a pile-on, and we all know who feels it most. It is every person who has to drive. It is every householder depending on home heating oil. It is the farmer, the fisherman, the small tourism operator and the builder trying to stay afloat. It is the hard-working men and women of this country. They are the people for whom Independent Ireland stands. They are the backbone of this country and they are barely surviving. They are the very people who took to the streets for the fuel protests. They were not protesting for the sake of it but because filling their car, lorry, bus, tractor or fishing vessel had become unaffordable, heating their home had become a luxury and running a business had become a gamble. They protested because they felt they had no other option left.

The fundamental question is why it took protests for the Government to listen. Why does it take crisis after crisis fuelled by energy shortages and food inflation before action is taken? The system is reactive. Prices go up, people struggle, pressures build and protests happen before the Government responds. It is not good enough, it cannot continue and it is why this motion matters. We are proposing a fiscal planning framework for economic certainty. It is a system that finally would bring structure, planning and predictability into how we respond to shocks. We know those shocks are not going away. Fuel prices will rise again, energy costs will spike again and food prices will fluctuate again. It is a question of when, not if. People should not have to protest next time just to be heard. They should already know what will happen.

The framework we propose would set out a clear trigger point. When fuel costs reach a certain level, action will be taken. When inflation rises beyond a threshold, supports will be activated. When farming inputs spike, relief will be provided. The responses must be ready in advance. They include cuts to fuel excise to being down pump prices, VAT reductions to ease pressure on households, targeted supports for farmers, fishermen, hauliers and builders, help for small business owners struggling with overheads and direct supports for families facing impossible heating and electricity bills. Instead of delay, uncertainty and last-minute scrambling, we need certainty. Having certainty changes everything. It means a family facing a heating bill of €1,300 knows help is coming. It means workers filling their tank at €2 per litre know relief will kick in. It means a farmer planning a season is not gambling on the unknown. It means people in the building sector know exactly what the future holds. It means people are not left feeling ignored until they are forced out onto the streets.

That is what the fuel protests told us.

They told us people were struggling and were fed up and they told us that the current approach was not working. While we know we cannot prevent global crises, we can prevent people being left without a plan when those crises hit. This motion is about replacing reaction with preparation and making sure that no one in this country has to protest just to be listened to again.

Deputy Paul Lawless

Aontú will be supporting the motion brought forward by my colleagues in Independent Ireland. As someone from a rural constituency, I know the hardships and difficulties that a high cost of fuel imposes on rural constituencies. We need economic controls and supports that trigger automatically when price inflation and fuel inflation soars. We cannot continue the current system where small businesses have to take to the streets to protest for their livelihoods during times of price hikes. Of course, it is not by accident that the Government is so slow to act and move. Inflation equals higher tax revenue, which suits the Government. Periods of high inflation where prices and energy costs soar are actually favourable to tax revenue because of the tax instrument in terms of fuel, percentages and VAT.

Through a parliamentary question, I have discovered that this Government is on track to take in €200 million more this year in carbon tax than last year. This will be the case even if the Government abandons the October increase in carbon tax. The carbon tax take is set to increase again. Every year, it is on an upward trajectory. According to figures released to Aontú, carbon tax is the second largest component of tax on fuel, second only to VAT, which is 23%.

The motion before us here today is not an expensive one. It is basic arithmetic. If the price of a product doubles, then one can cut the tax on that product by half and expect to take in the same revenue as the previous year. I want to make the point very clearly that, back when Russia invaded Ukraine and the Government took steps to reduce tax on fuel, the overall tax take on fuel did not reduce. In fact, it increased from the previous year. The rate of inflation was such that the public purse did not take a hit despite the excise reduction. In March 2022, as a result of the war, the Government reduced excise duty from 20 cent to 15 cent on diesel and it began restoring excise duty in June 2023, yet between the years 2022 and 2023, the amount of tax taken by this Government actually increased by about €60 million despite the excise reduction. This is what the impact of inflation is doing and what this motion tries to correct. The amount taken in carbon tax on petrol and diesel increased by 20% to 25% each year while the measures were in place. Despite the reductions in excise duty, the Government actually came out of the situation significantly better off in terms of tax revenue. In March of this year, because of the spike in fuel prices that so many families and businesses were suffering, the Government took in an additional €6 million in excise duty compared with the same month last year. That was just one month.

It is mind-boggling to think that the Government is still intent on increasing carbon taxes in October. Canada has reduced carbon tax to zero and Spain has reduced VAT on fuel to 10% while VAT in Ireland is still at 23%. The high taxation policy in relation to fuel is driving a rip-off republic. It is driving inflation in every single sector in this economy.

In response to Aontú's calls for cutting carbon tax, the Taoiseach constantly made the assertion that we needed the funds for other climate action measures. However, further research that I have undertaken shows that the Government is unable to spend much of the carbon tax and is unable to spend the National Oil Reserves Agency, NORA, levy.

We support this motion and I thank my colleagues in Independent Ireland for bringing it forward.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Aindrias Moynihan)

Leanfaimid ar aghaidh. Iarraim ar an Aire Stáit leasú an Rialtais a mholadh. I now invite the Minister of State to move the Government amendment to the motion.

Minister of State at the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport (Deputy Charlie McConalogue)

I move:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"notes that:

— the conflict in the Middle East has, once again, exposed the vulnerability of the Irish economy, and Irish society more generally, to imported fossil fuels;

— these strategic dependencies have major macroeconomic implications, the risks to macroeconomic and fiscal stability cannot be ignored;

— at a minimum, the large upward shift in energy prices is likely to impart a stagflationary impulse to the global economy, a combination of lower levels of economic activity alongside higher inflation;

— in response, the Government has taken appropriate and timely action to provide relief for households and businesses;

— the total budgetary cost of these support measures is of the order of €750 million this year, this is one the largest interventions of any country in the European Union, these measures reduce the annual rate of inflation in April, May, June and July by about 0.6 percentage points;

— these measures have cut Excise Duty on diesel by 32 cent per litre, and 27 cent on petrol, including the reduction in the National Oil Reserves Agency levy, reduced Excise Duty on green diesel by 7.4 cent per litre, increased repayments under the Diesel Rebate Scheme, and extended the Fuel Allowance to the end of April;

— the Government has also agreed to delay the increase in carbon tax to later in the year, and is introducing support schemes for the transportation and agricultural sectors, in total, these measures represent a significant investment of financial resources to support households and businesses, and will remain in place until 31st July, 2026; and

— the Government published its Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan (MTP) in December 2025, setting out a medium-term fiscal strategy based on three core pillars, sustainability, resilience and readiness;

recognises that:

— a package worth €750 million of supports has been introduced by the Government within the framework of the Government's MTP;

— the MTP provides an appropriate fiscal framework that allows for the achievement of the Government's overarching aim to improve people's lives in a sustainable way;

— by setting an overall medium-term expenditure path, the design of this framework provides Government with the flexibility to respond to challenges, such as, the impact of the conflict in the Middle East on households and businesses, in a timely and proportionate manner, alongside the operation of automatic stabilisers;

— it sets out the Government's commitment to a balanced and sustainable approach to overall fiscal policy, ensuring we continue to target budget surpluses over the medium-term, and set aside some of the windfall to prepare for the future;

— the MTP supports progress on implementing the key social and economic priorities, while delivering on our commitment to sustainable public finances;

— it demonstrates the Government's commitment to using the resources of the State to improve people's lives in a sustainable way, it will act as the framework within which Government decisions will be taken during its term in office, it focuses on delivery, and allows for significant public resources to be directed at improving public services over a five-year period;

— it ensures that we have had the agility to respond, swiftly and forcefully, to help households, firms and sectors when necessary;

— consideration of any trigger points must be balanced in certain instances against the time lag inherent in economic data, which could delay timely Government responses;

— the Irish economy is facing its second fossil fuel shock in less than five years;

— fossil fuel dependence, especially imported fossil fuels, is a major economic vulnerability;

— analytical work will be undertaken by the Department of Finance to set out the key macroeconomic principles that should guide the medium-term transition to manage Ireland's strategic import dependencies; and

— the Government has also established the National Energy Affordability Taskforce to identify, assess and implement measures that will enhance energy affordability for households and businesses while delivering key renewable commitments and protecting security of supply and economic stability; and

acknowledges that:

— the geopolitical and economic outlook continues to be highly uncertain;

— in the Department of Finance's reference scenario, set out in the Annual Progress Report inflation is projected to average 3.3 per cent this year, 1.5 percentage points higher than assumed at budget time but still significantly lower than the 8.1 per cent rate recorded in 2022, after the last energy price shock;

— the economy is still expected to grow this year, albeit at a slower pace than previously forecast, and Government has committed to a range of temporary measures to mitigate the impact of increases in energy prices on households and businesses;

— the overall approach to budgetary policy must remain balanced and sustainable over the medium-term; and

— the Government will consider the continued impact of the energy shock on households, and make proportionate decisions in the forthcoming Budget within the parameters of the appropriate fiscal strategy set out in the MTP."

I thank Independent Ireland for putting this motion before the House today. I am glad to be able to take this matter and give the opening response on behalf of the Government.

At the outset, a lot of the opening contributions by Independent Ireland and Deputy Lawless put the proposition that the Government was cheering on inflation because Government benefited from it in some way. That is certainly not the case. Across the board, where we have inflation, it puts pressure on people's real living standards. It also puts pressure on Government expenditure. Overall, it puts significant pressure on the objective of the Government to try to improve people's incomes and capacity to spend. In fact, one of the key objectives of the Government is to try to take any steps we can that would actually see inflation addressed, not increased.

While there may have been an increased take in relation to fuel, the Government has taken two steps now with two packages to reduce the excise on fuel, thereby seeing a significant reduction in State income from that. Of course, as with every other sector of society, we see inflation impact on the expenditure of the Government. In relation to the economy and, in particular, families, it puts increased pressure on people. The objective of the Government is to try in every way possible to support people's real living standards. We do not want to see inflation. Indeed, the steps we have taken have been to try to address that challenge and the impact it has been having on people.

The Government opposes the motion tabled by Independent Ireland. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has once again exposed the vulnerability of the Irish economy to imported fossil fuels. According to the International Energy Agency, IEA, we now face a global energy crisis greater than the 1970s oil crisis and the Ukraine war combined.

Like the rest of the world, energy price spikes and price volatility have directly impacted Irish businesses and consumers. This raises both short-term and long-term issues. In the immediate term, the Government recognises the pressures and uncertainty this has generated for Irish households and for key sectors of the economy. It is for this reason that we have introduced a package of supports worth €750 million, among the largest package of any EU member state. Longer term, our strategic dependency on fossil fuels has major macroeconomic and fiscal implications. The evidence from across Europe is clear. Moving towards domestic sources of renewable energy increases our energy security, boosts competitiveness and reduces the burden on ordinary people during shocks like this. This is why the Government is investing record levels of funding in domestic energy infrastructure.

Our ability to implement both short-term relief measures and the longer term investments needed to address this issue permanently is due to our careful management of the public finances over many years. However, the relatively good position of the public finances cannot be taken for granted. There are well-known vulnerabilities in our tax base, particularly surrounding corporation tax. The Government has been effectively managing these risks by continuing to invest in critical infrastructure while also saving for the future through the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund. These investments will allow us to navigate the structural issues we face, such as ageing and the energy transition, by making our economy more resilient and competitive in the longer term.

As we look to the future, it is impossible to predict how external shocks will evolve or what new challenges will emerge. This extreme uncertainty highlights the critical importance of maintaining a sustainable budgetary strategy that allows for a rapid and flexible Government response in times of need. In December, the Government published the medium-term fiscal and structural plan, which sets out a medium-term strategy based on three core pillars of sustainability, resilience and readiness.

The medium-term plan provides a broad fiscal framework which allows the Government to achieve its aim of improving people's lives in a sustainable way. By setting out an overall medium-term expenditure path, this framework provides the Government with the flexibility to respond to challenges in a timely and proportionate manner. At the same time, it supports the Government's commitment to balanced and sustainable fiscal policy, ensuring we continue to target budget surpluses over the medium term while investing money in the two funds to pay for future costs.

The medium-term plan ensures that we have had the ability to respond swiftly and decisively to help households, firms and sectors whenever necessary. For example, the recent supports we introduced operate within the framework of the medium term plan. These supports include €750 million worth of measures focused on mitigating the impact of high energy costs on households and businesses. These measures reduced the annual rate of inflation in April, May, June and July by about 0.6%. We have cut excise duty on diesel by 32 cent per litre and 27 cent per litre for petrol, including the reduction in the NORA levy. We have also reduced excise duty on green diesel by 7.4 cent per litre. We increased repayments under the diesel rebate scheme and we extended the fuel allowance to the end of April.

The Government has also agreed to delay the increase in carbon tax to later in the year and is introducing support schemes for the transportation, agriculture and fisheries sectors. In total, these measures represent a significant investment of financial resources to support households and businesses. These interventions build on permanent, targeted supports we introduced as part of budgets 2025 and 2026, including a 9% VAT rate for gas and electricity, increases in core welfare rates, higher child support payments and increases and extensions to the fuel allowance. This targeted and practical support package ensures that those exposed to fuel increases will receive meaningful assistance.

In addition to the wide-ranging support already provided by the Government, we recognise that more needs to be done to improve energy affordability, sustainability, and security into the future. Ireland's vulnerability to external energy price shocks is in large part a consequence of our reliance on imported fossil fuels. Reducing this dependence will minimise our exposure to shifts in the international environment and strengthen energy security over the medium and longer term. As such, the Government is making significant investments in renewable energy and grid infrastructure, as well as implementing supports to improve the energy efficiency of our homes and workplaces. Ireland recently achieved 8 GW of installed onshore renewable electricity capacity, a clean energy milestone which marks a significant step towards energy efficiency and security.

Budget 2026 also allocated a record €640 million for Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, retrofit schemes, allowing us to target 73,000 home energy upgrades over the course of this year. This includes €340 million for the warmer homes scheme, which provides fully funded upgrades for those in energy poverty. These investments are making Irish homes more sustainable and energy-efficient, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and lowering energy costs for households. We will continue to scale up that investment and accelerate delivery.

In June of last year we established the national energy affordability task force to identify and implement measures to enhance energy affordability for households and businesses. The task force provides a co-ordinated and coherent whole-of-government response to the energy crisis, aligned with programme for Government commitments as well as longer-term objectives on energy affordability and security. The task force is preparing an energy affordability plan as well as co-ordinating the national response to the energy shock arising from the conflict in the Middle East.

It is also worth acknowledging that the Irish economy has remained remarkably resilient in the face of a series of external shocks. Our unemployment rate has remained below 5% for four years, consistent with full employment. Economic growth is expected to continue this year, albeit at a slower pace than previously forecast. We cannot take this economic strength for granted. Risks remain and the outlook continues to be highly uncertain, shaped by factors outside of our control. Accordingly, the Government will continue to take a flexible approach to the current energy crisis, while remaining fiscally and economically responsible. Our fiscal strategy provides a framework for this approach. It ensures that we have had the ability to respond to challenges quickly and appropriately, while maintaining the sustainability of the public finances and investing in the long term.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Darren O'Rourke)

Before we move to the next speaker I welcome the children from Skerries Educate Together to the Visitors Gallery, along with their teachers, John and Mary. This is of special interest to Deputy Grace Boland as her two children - twins, Kaya and Millie - are with them. Tá fáilte mhór rompu uilig.

Deputy Ken O'Flynn

The twins above in the Gallery can be very proud of their mother. She is a great parliamentarian.

There is a growing sense in this community and across Ireland that the ordinary working people are being pushed to their limits, not just by one single crisis, but by continuous pressure every single day and every single week. Nowhere is that pressure more visible than it is in commuter towns - in commuters, taxi drivers and working people across the cities and suburbs. They are the people who get up before dawn, who spend hours sitting in traffic. They are the people who are paying more and more simply to get to work and get home again.

The Government tells us that the economy is strong, but ordinary people do not experience the economy through statistics, they experience it at the petrol pump, the till and when the insurance renewal lands through the front door. They experience it when they pay another toll, parking charge, tax, electricity bill or gas bill. I will put the biggest fear in this country to the Minister and on the record of this House. It is the current postman's knock, and what bill will be dropped through the letterbox at any time.

People ask themselves very simple questions: what is the point and when is this going to stop? For many workers, life no longer feels like progress, it feels like survival. Today, I particularly want to mention taxi drivers because they see the real Ireland, which the Government is sometimes very removed from. They see the nurses coming home from night shifts. They see the elderly person abandoned by poor public transport. They see the young worker who cannot afford to live near their job. They see the family trying to stretch every euro at the end of every week. Taxi drivers themselves are under enormous strain as a result of fuel costs. Insurance is crippling them. Vehicle costs are increasing. There are also increasing licensing costs and regulations yet many are earning less in real terms than they were earning many years ago. Some of them are asking whether it is worth staying on the road or if it is financially viable any more.

The Government seems to have a tremendous disconnect from the reality facing these workers. Outside a few well-served urban areas, the private car is not a luxury. It is not a luxury for any family in this country. It is how people get to work. It is how parents bring their children to school. It is how carers look after their elderly relatives. It is how ordinary life functions in this State. Increasingly, commuters feel punished for simply trying to get their lives together and to live their lives. Commuters are stuck in traffic for hours in these cities and towns, watching infrastructure delayed again and again. They are paying more every year while getting less in return. People are exhausted - financially, mentally and from hearing that Ireland is doing wonderfully while their own standard of living has continued to decline. This frustration is no longer confined to one generation or class in this country. Younger people feel it. Middle-income people feel it. Older people feel it. Small business owners feel it. There is a widening gap between the political establishment and the messaging this Government is sending and the public reality. The public see it clearly. This debate is not just about transport. It is not just about getting our finances in order; it is about affordability, quality of life and whether ordinary working people still matter to this Republic. If somebody works hard in this State, contributes to society and obeys the rules and they still cannot get ahead, then something is fundamentally wrong in this Republic. The public know that and they are increasingly losing their patience with the Government.

Deputy Paul Nicholas Gogarty

I welcome the opportunity to speak on preparation for any type of future impact on our State. The one we had recently was obviously the ongoing fuel crisis related to Trump's illogical and downright dumb actions in the Strait of Hormuz and the way the United States and Israel are attacking the Iranian regime. It is an admittedly corrupt and murderous regime but that is not how you topple dictators, and we are suffering the consequences. Five years before that, we had to deal with the Covid pandemic. Ten years before that, we had a massive economic downturn, which successive Governments were responsible for making worse before we had to take those necessary but harsh measures that hurt a lot of people at the time.

In general terms, we are in a period of boom again, although there have been warnings about the impact of AI on jobs and, as the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council says every year, our overdependence on a very small cohort of foreign multinationals. We have revenue right now that needs to be spent strategically but we do need to spend that money. There are several areas I wish to deal with in my brief amount of time to make a contribution.

A recent interaction of mine was with the Taoiseach during Leaders' Questions, when I mentioned the issue of food security. What if we had some form of naval blockade or another global pandemic that impacted the supply of food to this country? I laid out a scenario in which our shelves would be seriously impacted within a couple of weeks. Long term, even though we have enough beef and dairy to supply 32 million people with, that is not a runner in terms of sustainability. In addition, without the imported feed and without the nitrate, our production capacity in that unhealthy way would be damaged. I mentioned issues like having a strategic food reserve, including being able to increase our tillage for strategic purposes, diversification into the likes of fava beans, which can be used for all sorts of protein, and making sure that, like the Netherlands, which is way ahead of us, we can actually react.

The same thing relates to our oil reserves in the short to medium term. We should not let them go down or leave them in the hands of a private operator because we would be vastly stuck if the supply were to stop entirely. As regards the medium term, we heard the Minister, Darragh O'Brien, today try to wangle his way out of why we are not doing what we should be doing in terms of meeting our climate emissions targets. We have so much potential in the next two or three years to create that self-sufficiency. I note that the Minister did say the private wires legislation is coming. That will enable people who can have solar panels on their own houses to store the energy in batteries in those houses. It will also hopefully mean that when we are trying to encourage more people to go with EVs, and when they are in the newer housing estates operated by management companies, they can put a cable under the ground and get their domestic tariff. You can tackle climate change by still allowing people to drive. I am a firm believer in giving options for cycling and for public transport but in many areas in my constituency there are parking wars because people have no option but to drive. You give them somewhere to park and make it hard to get around in the immediate environment to encourage other modes of transport but you create sustainable communities by giving people different options.

The key to giving people options is having energy self-security. While we have some progress in offshore wind, there have not been any new contracts for many years. We have some movement on solar but we have absolutely nothing on tidal or wave. We are way behind, laggards, compared with the likes of Denmark. Those two technologies might be in their infancy but we should be at the forefront in developing them. We should be identifying deepwater ports for this type of technology in order that with battery storage and green hydrogen conversion - and the best rate of this is 60% of overall power production - we are self-sufficient in energy so we have capacity to make revenue from data companies and export to the grid through France and the UK.

There is a massive good news story as part of a global effort to reduce climate emissions but even if we are doing our bit and no one else is and things will get worse down the line, we need that food security and that energy self-sufficiency for whatever world faces us. We need to look at the money we have and spend it strategically now, borrowing if necessary, because we might not understand it right now but we are facing a wartime situation in terms of climate and future shocks around the globe.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

I thank Independent Ireland for bringing forward this motion on a fiscal planning framework. The motion calls for a framework that would set out an economic policy response to external shocks in terms of financial supports and taxation. There is undoubtedly a need to provide certainty and confidence and to re-establish trust by clearly setting out the measures that would be considered during future crises. The energy shock we are still living through was met with a Government response that was and still is completely inadequate. It exposed a deep lack of preparation and an unwillingness to act on the part of the Government. We saw a dangerous inertia in the face of a crisis from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents. Instead of action, they sat on their hands while people were literally crying out for help. There was an attitude across Government that it was nothing to do with it. It acted like responding to international prices was not a job of government. It through up its hands and blamed the markets. The primary duty of any government is to protect its people, to protect the economy and people's livelihoods but week after week, as people were crying out for help, this Government turned away.

It went further than that. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents took an approach of talking down to people. They refused to listen to what people were telling them and what they were going through. People should never have to take to the streets to force this Government to act like we saw during the fuel protests. However, that does not just happen; it takes people feeling like they have no other option. The truth is that trust has been destroyed. That is why the proposals set out in this motion should be taken seriously. Sectors like the haulage sector, the agriculture sector and the fisheries sector were all treated as disposable by this Government, and that can never, ever happen again. Those sectors are still under massive pressure.

This is not solely about specific sectors, however, as we know. Just like the protests, this is about a broader issue of cost of living, a crisis that affects so many people the length and breadth of this State, a crisis that is still raging today. It was not caused just by Trump and Israel's reckless war in Iran. It was here before that. Obviously, the most recent energy spikes were brought on by that war but that came on the back of years of relentless price increases, a crisis the Government has failed to get under control and, indeed, a crisis it has added to.

Right now the cost-of-living crisis is worse than ever. Many households and small businesses are on the brink. The price of green diesel, for example, is at unsustainably high levels. Home heating oil has hit record prices and the Government still refuses to cut it by a single cent in excise. Record numbers cannot pay their electricity bills. Some 320,000 families, one in four, cannot pay their gas bills. Yet we have a Government that plans to increase taxes on gas, home eating oil and coal in the autumn, just a couple of months away, as people face into the winter. Most people, schools, organisations and businesses have been completely let down and left on their own. Every worker in this State was abandoned last year in the budget by this Government when it gave more than €1 billion in tax cuts to those at the top and left workers worse off. When people were drowning under the cost-of-living crisis, this Government chose not to give them a helping hand. People are working harder now than ever. They are doing longer hours. They are working every hour God sends them just trying to keep their heads above the water. They are paying more and more, yet somehow they are falling behind.

I welcome the constructive proposals in this motion but the only way to respond to the scale of the pressure is with an emergency budget and to take a fraction of the surpluses for this year and use it to take the pressure off people right now. We have had report after report, more and more evidence stacking up, all of it just telling us what people already know: that life is unaffordable, that it is a struggle and that something needs to give. Workers know their pay cheque does not stretch to the end of the week any more. Pensioners know the massive pressures and costs they are under, and the measly increase in last year's budget did not even keep up with food inflation. You can draw a straight line from that to the fact that the number of older people living in poverty has doubled under the Government's watch. These are our older people, the people who have lived their lives, paid their taxes and done everything right, yet the number of them in poverty has now doubled under the Government's watch.

We would not need an automatic framework if we had a Government in touch with what is going on up and down this country and if we had a Government that was in touch with the pressure that people are under.

We need to help people in the here-and-now but that has to be used just to buy time to make the actual long-term reforms. This Government has done none of that, however. It has done one-off measures that have never been combined with any meaningful change to make lasting difference to people's lives. We have remained trapped in a cost-of-living crisis because the Government has run out of ideas. It just outsources responsibility to the European Union or to the markets and that has failed and is continuing to fail people. I will continue to raise this over and over again because people really need it, right here and right now. We need an emergency cost-of-living package, we need an emergency budget and it cannot be held back any longer.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

It is actually quite shocking that there are not already emergency plans in place that can respond more quickly and more effectively during periods of severe economic disruption. Businesses and workers need certainty. They need to know that when extraordinary circumstances arise, there is a clear and co-ordinated plan to support employment and cash flow. We need practical measures that can help businesses weather crises, including targeted energy supports and measures to ease excessive operating costs, such as spiralling fuel prices. However, any framework must be fair, transparent and focused on protecting workers, families and indigenous enterprise; not simply providing blanket supports without accountability or oversight. The Government should be more proactive and less reactive. Now is the time to do the planning and have the support mechanisms in place to contend with future shocks. We also need to recognise that long-term resilience cannot be built on temporary emergency measures alone. Businesses need affordable energy, functioning infrastructure, access to finance and certainty from Government all year round and not just during crises. The Government must move away from ad hoc crisis management and towards a more prepared and strategic approach that gives businesses and workers greater certainty during times of economic instability.

I want to talk about the schemes that are being introduced. I cannot understand why the end users of those schemes are not consulted at the design stage of the schemes. I will give an example relating to the fuel support scheme for farmers and farm contractors. It is due to close today. The level of uptake has been extremely poor. The reason for this poor return in payment making is because it is not worthwhile. The scheme is calculated from the total usage from the year 2025, with only five months counted as rebate for 20 cent per litre. A farmer who purchased 2,000 litres of fuel is entitled to a rebate of just €166. A farmer would have to qualify for a rebate of at least €100 to be eligible to apply. This is equivalent to purchasing approximately 1,400 litres for 2025. These figures would not be reached by most small-to-medium size farmers, meaning they are excluded completely from the scheme. This happens over and over again. With the increased costs of fuel and fertiliser, etc., this approach to compensating farmers is not nearly enough to alleviate the pressure from rising prices. I cannot understand why in the design of these schemes the Government does not take up the suggestions that are made from Opposition. A much better approach would have been a scheme like the fodder payment scheme paid a few years ago, which was a universal payment. That would have been the common sense approach to this to make sure that farmers in Mayo, Donegal and the more rural constituencies can avail of the schemes that are there. There is no point in having them otherwise.

For instance, there are 250 supports available under local enterprise and enterprise support schemes. When businesses go to look for them, as the Minister of State will know, time and time again the administrative burden and the cost of accessing these schemes is impossible. It is absolutely impossible for businesses. The Government needs to think and it needs to actually involve the end users of these schemes in the design so the Government's time, their time and our time is not being wasted. Just because the Opposition put up tangible, sensible ideas does not mean the egos of those in government should not allow them to avail of what is being given in terms of the design of schemes. Will they just cop-on in relation to all of these schemes and the planning that needs to be done?

Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn

I commend Independent Ireland on the motion. It is an important debate we are having here and it is very clear that the Government has wasted opportunity after opportunity. The calls from the Opposition for an energy credit were supposed to alleviate the burden of homeowners but also to give breathing space to Government to take on the price-gouging of the energy companies. Every time the Government had that opportunity, it wasted it. I am of the view that the Government was cynical because the last time it brought these credits in was days before the last general election. I do not believe it was an attempt to deal with price-gouging. I believe it was a cynical political stunt because the Government has withdrawn them in the harder times that are here now.

The failure to deal with the energy companies is unforgivable because it was Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil policy that gave away what was a proud electrification system built up by the Irish people. We built it up ourselves in hard times with the visionaries who were there at the time and we handed it away to private companies. We had the cheapest electricity in Europe. Today we have the most expensive electricity in Europe. We have a failure, not only in how the Government privatised what was a proud publicly owned amenity but then, if we look at wind energy on land, half the turbines are turned off because the electricity infrastructure is not there. If we look at offshore renewable energy, the Government has made a mess of it on the east coast. The Government did not consult with stakeholders like fishermen and now people are locked into legal battles and the whole process has stalled because of the arrogance and mess that was there. Again, that is because the Government was too close to industry and was not thinking about the best interests of our people.

My final comments today are going to be about fishermen. Where have the supports for fishermen been in recent years? Even after Brexit, the Government never once brought in fuel subsidies. Never once, through all the price shocks that were there as a result of Brexit and the war on Ukraine, were fuel subsidies introduced. Inshore fishermen got nothing, absolutely nothing. As somebody who represents a coastal constituency, I ask that the Minister of State engage with his colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Timmy Dooley, and his colleague and party leader, Deputy Simon Harris, on the request for financial subsidies for inshore fishermen. There are about 900 of them active across the State. It would not be hard to keep them on the water and to keep those communities flourishing but it needs subsidies. They have never asked for it before. They are there now. They are requesting it now. They have a really good proposal on the table. I am asking the Minister of State to engage with his colleagues and try to deliver a sustainable future for inshore fishermen all around the coast in County Mayo and all around the State.

Deputy Cathy Bennett

I thank Independent Ireland for putting this motion forward today. In recent years, ordinary workers and families have endured a number of economic shocks. Consistently, however, this Government has had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, in order to deploy countermeasures - kicking and screaming to support workers, families, farmers, hauliers and many more. Developers though, have got their tax breaks and, of course, bankers have had their bonuses increased. However, for people struggling to pay electricity bills, heat their homes and put fuel into their cars the Government's response has been half-baked half-measures, often deployed too late and withdrawn the moment the Government feels it is politically acceptable. I welcome this proposal, which would mandate the Government to outline an emergency response to such shocks.

One cohort of people who are no strangers to shocks are the farming families.

During the times they are receiving a fair price, which are too rare, the one certainty is that it will not last forever. That is part of why the CAP is so important. It is an important mechanism whereby farmers are paid largely for the environmental, biodiversity and animal health and welfare benefits that they deliver in spades. It is also a mechanism that helps many farms stay viable as it somewhat offsets the entirely unfair prices, which are below the cost of production, they receive for their produce. It is a crucial driver in rural economies, particularly when it is taken in tandem with the LEADER programme with which it is linked. It is therefore of deep concern that the CAP has been viewed by successive European Commissions as a soft touch and something to be raided to fund the pet project of the day. This has led to decreasing funds for Irish farmers in real terms at the very time Ireland became a net contributor to the European budget. The Government wants to spin the figures but I am not sure any farmer would say that the CAP today serves them better than the CAP of 20 years ago. Is anybody queuing up to tell the Minister of State that the new agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, is a patch on the old rural environment protection scheme, REPS? It has also led to reduced LEADER funding for very important programmes in our rural communities. It is welcome to have a rare opportunity to discuss this with the Minister for Finance, whose own Department publishes a report each year confirming the dwindling CAP receipts the Government oversees.

I appeal to the Minister of State to seek to reverse previous cuts during the coming negotiations. However, he cannot seek to restore that funding as he denies it was every taken away. I suggest that he actually read his own Government's reports and recognise that his predecessors sold out our farmers in previous negotiations.

Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú

It is really unfortunate that we have to have another one of these discussions. As we are all aware, the reality out there in the world is that people are under severe pressure. That severe pressure started long before Donald Trump, led by genocidal Israel, brought us into the madness we now find ourselves in. That madness also increases the absolute necessity for us to see delivery on the occupied territories Bill with regard to both goods and services while also pushing for movement on the trade element of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. We know that will be a difficult battle so we should do what we can ourselves. They created this madness but long before that, we had 317,000 people in arrears with their electricity and energy bills. One quarter of that number were in arrears with their gas bills. That is the reality. Every TD, elected representative and other person out there who engages with people will know that. I have no doubt the Minister of State has dealt with people who have been in even more difficult circumstances and who never believed they would be.

We can talk about the moves that are being made in relation to public transport but for a considerable number of people, the car is the only option. We have not delivered for workers and families. We need to see a further decrease in costs, particularly the 15 cent the Government can act on. While I am talking during one of the warmest periods of the year, this being Ireland, it is not going to last. Those who need home heating oil and kerosene and those who are most vulnerable will need fuel very soon, if they do not already. Many were waiting on Government to provide some sort of relief but that relief did not come. That is what we need to see. We need to see those sorts of actions.

It goes without saying that action should have been taken previously on energy company profiteering. We have not given the CRU the necessary powers to hold these companies to account. Sinn Féin and many others recently discussed such proposals but we have not seen action from Government. That is why there is a call for energy credits. These calls are made on the basis that it is something the Government can do now, despite its failure to take other actions.

We continue to see waste throughout the system. That is the difficult piece for people. I refer to the €50 million written off by Irish Rail in relation to its train management system, which is absolutely dead in the water. That is before we talk about bike sheds, security huts and the national children's hospital. People are absolutely fed up with this.

I have spoken with the Minister of State previously. It is absolutely necessary to provide a cost-of-living package and a cost-of-disability payment. We need a payment now and we need a properly constructed payment that works into the future and that recognises that the most vulnerable need these supports.

Deputy Ged Nash

I also thank Independent Ireland for tabling this motion this morning. It is a well-intentioned motion that is designed to put forward some solutions to the real challenges households and business are facing at present. It provides us with another opportunity to tease out the respective positions of parties in this House in that regard. It would be remiss of me not to remind Government that just two weeks ago, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Independent TDs who support the Government voted against a Labour Party motion to introduce a mini-budget targeted specifically at those who require support the most, and I refer to those who have been essentially left behind by the recent package introduced by Government, the PAYE workers who are, to use a hackneyed phrase, genuinely the backbone of this country and who produce the goods and services that have allowed us to generate significant wealth at Exchequer level, allowing us to invest in services and to have the resources we need to support our society as best we can.

Nobody is saying that any government can insulate every single household and business from the worst effects of this unprecedented crisis, which the International Energy Agency itself has said will have a worse impact than the 1970s oil crisis. We in Labour certainly are not saying that. In many respects, the inability of households to absorb this latest energy shock can be traced back to poor decisions made by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in budget 2026, particularly in two areas. There was a failure to fully index core social welfare rates, which has exposed to an even greater level those who depend on the State for their income and who spend a disproportionate amount of their income on heating their homes and on food and groceries. There are also the issues the Government has created for PAYE workers, those very same working people who get up early in the morning, who work hard and who rightly feel the social contract is broken. They do everything properly and correctly. They play by the rules. They work hard and educate themselves and their families. They are paying high rents and mortgages. They feel they get little in return. Their PAYE tax bands, rates and credits are not indexed, which means that, in many cases, they have experienced an effective pay cut. Any small pay increase that has been received is swallowed up by the Revenue Commissioners and goes back into the general taxation pot.

We are living in unprecedented times and in an era of real uncertainty and insecurity. That post-Second World War settlement is not just fraying at the edges; it has collapsed. I would prefer if the motion considered why that is the case. It is because of a move to far-right politics and the election of populist and extremist leaders around the world, egged on by tech billionaires who have no interest in the travails of small businesses and ordinary households across the world.

Their only concern is to enrich themselves. It is the behaviour of these maniacs that has created the problems we are experiencing.

The problems here in Ireland are even greater because of our excessive reliance on fossil fuels. We cannot keep subsidising high fossil fuel prices or continue relying on fossil fuels for a couple of different reasons. The first is that we clearly need to decarbonise our economy. The second is we need to improve our energy security. By improving our energy security in terms of the move to renewables, which is not mentioned, from what I can see, in this motion, we can then make our energy bills cheaper for every household and business across the country. We need a renewed focus on that.

I am interested in the idea - and I accept that it is well-intentioned - of a national framework for economic resilience and emerging fiscal planning. Who could argue with that? However, the idea that businesses and industries will have some kind of visibility in the context of a potential activation of certain supports during another energy shock is intriguing. Why would we tell highly profitable fossil fuel energy companies that regardless of the increases they impose on consumers, we are going to subsidise that and every household anyway? That does not make sense. Certainly, I would have to look askance at any businessperson who thinks that it does make sense.

No one should have any difficulty with a move to more sound economic and fiscal planning. That is something we support. I would query some aspects of this motion, while, at the same time, respecting the intent, which is, in general, more positive. When we are looking at the question of economic and fiscal resilience, we also need to look at the structural changes we need to make to our economy and governance system in order to ensure that is the case and that we will not, in this era of permacrisis, be back in this situation again next year, the year after or the year after that.

How do you make an economy more resilient? You do it by ensuring the economy is managed properly and that we avoid the boom-and-bust scenarios that have bedevilled this State for much of its history. We have seen the fallout from that in recent years and the consequences for households, businesses and citizens. We do that by ensuring that housing is safe, secure and affordable. We create a resilient economy by investing in education at all levels, from early years right through to fourth level and lifelong learning. We do that by getting to grips with AI and the threat of mass displacement of jobs and businesses. We do it by closing the income inequality gap that is destroying both our society and the social contract. We do that by embedding collective bargaining systems into our economy, which is something the Government is resisting.

We create a more resilient economic framework by having a renewed focus on the development of highly productive, innovative, indigenous Irish enterprises. We are far too reliant on a small handful of American-based foreign direct investment firms for the bulk of our corporation tax receipts and for a significant proportion of our PAYE receipts from the good jobs they have to create. That is a risk that is always worth repeating. We create a more sound fiscal position and more secure economy by ensuring we tax wealth and assets better than we have managed to do to date. As I said earlier, we do it by focusing on renewables rather than relying on fossil fuels. This motion just deals with the symptoms of that problem as opposed to offering a solution. We also do that by ensuring that we continue to use excess corporation tax receipts and put them into the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund, as well as being responsible about how we plan our economy.

We need to address the structural issues that are creating the cost-of-living permacrisis that has been ongoing for a number of years. Given the volatility in the world at present, we are likely to experience these kinds of shocks again and again. Rather than opting for sticking-plaster solutions that are well-intentioned, what we need to do is address the real fundamental imbalances in our economy and in how our society works. That is how we address those problems and that is what we need to focus on. However, that is not where the focus of this Government or the previous Government has been.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

Ar dtús, ba mhaith liom a rá go bhfuil rudaí an-deacair do dhaoine anois. I thank Independent Ireland for bringing forward this motion and giving us the opportunity to talk about these very important issues regarding the cost-of-living pressures people are facing day in and day out. We would take a different approach to dealing with this crisis from the one outlined in the motion, because we believe it is fundamentally important that people have the emergency short-term supports that are needed and that we take action that is focused on the medium and long term in order that we do just not go from crisis to crisis. I want to talk about that more during my contribution.

An important part of our response has to be measures to help people who are struggling to keep food on the table today and who are worrying about when it gets cold again and how they are going to heat their homes. They are making difficult, impossible choices day in and day out. Coming into the summer, there are parents who know that they cannot afford to pay for activities for their kids. Their kids' friends are able to take part in activities that cost money but they are not. There are families who know they will not be able to take a holiday. There are also families who are already thinking about the start of school at the end of August or the beginning of September and how they are going to meet costs relating to iPads, technology, etc. All of these worries gnaw at people day in and day out. People will literally go to bed and wake up worrying about them. The Government response has been wholly inadequate. At the same time, we have to adopt a long-term approach which means that we are not just going from crisis to crisis. I will talk more about that.

The Minister referred to moving towards domestic sources of renewable energy to increase our energy security, boost competitiveness and reduce the burden on ordinary people during shocks like this. The key words there are "moving towards." Fine Gael has been in office since 2011, and we still have no offshore wind at all. We had an offshore wind farm at that time, so we are actually going backwards in terms of offshore renewable energy. That is an incredible indictment of this Government. It is all the more incredible when you look at what Spain has achieved in recent years. Spain has broken its dependency on gas in the context of electricity generation. It has put more renewable wind and solar energy in place, which means it has some of the cheapest electricity bills for households and businesses in Europe. Contrastingly, in Ireland, we have the highest electricity bills for households and businesses in Europe. Not only that, our country is one of the most reliant in the EU on imported fossil fuels. We are incredibly exposed to what is happening in the Middle East at present and to any future shocks. We are on the way to paying out billions of euro in fines for not meeting our climate targets because of the failure of the Government to invest sufficiently in renewable energy.

The Social Democrats have put forward a practical proposal for something that could be done quickly by the Government to help with this. Our solar for all plan would increase the grants available to households, because availing of the grants available in order to invest in solar panels is currently out of reach for most households. This would bring down household electricity bills and help us to meet our renewable energy targets, which would mean we would be less exposed to current circumstances and to the future shocks which, unfortunately, are going to come.

I implore the Government to take on board our practical proposals. They could be implemented quickly. We need those on top of emergency measures, such as targeted energy credits of €400 to help households through the immediate crisis.

We need an emergency cost-of-disability payment for disabled people who, incredibly, had up to €1,400 taken off their annual incomes by the Government in the budget before this latest crisis even hit. It was an incredibly cruel move on the part of this Government to cut disabled people's incomes by up to €1,400. Having promised a cost-of-disability payment to help disabled people with the extra costs they face in both the general election campaign and the programme for Government, the Government took up to €1,400 off disabled people. That was a cruel, unnecessary decision in a country that has a lot of resources available to it.

We should also be working on the more long-term measures. We have the highest unemployment rate of disabled people in Europe. We would not need such high levels of income supports if the Government took the correct and necessary actions, like those taken by other European countries, to ensure that more disabled people could participate in the labour markets. It is incredible that the Government's targets for employment for disabled people in the public sector are below the current employment rate. That is an incredible indictment of the Government's record in respect of this matter, which came to light during the Estimates process in the documentation that the Government produced. It is indefensible.

A great deal needs to be done to address these issues. Other measures that are needed include affordable childcare, another matter in respect of which the Government broke all its promises. During the election campaign, Simon Harris promised that within 100 days of the new Government being formed, there would be a proper roadmap in place for affordable childcare in order to get the cost down to €200 a month. Of course, that was not produced. In the budget, there were no measures to reduce the cost of childcare for families. That is a massive block for families. That should have been done. There were promises, again by Simon Harris, to phase out third level fees. In the budget, the Government actually increased fees by €1,000, thereby putting families and students under even more pressure.

There has been promise after promise by the Government about helping people with the cost of living. What it actually did made matters worse. We really need the kinds of actions that we are talking about to get us out of these short-term crises. Sinéad O'Sullivan has written extensively about the need to build up the State's ability to invest in public services, capacity and renewable energy in order that we are not just having to put more money into emergency measures time and again, which, of course, reduces our capacity to be able to invest in medium- and long-term measures.

Deputy Rory Hearne

I thank Independent Ireland for tabling this motion. As my colleague said, we would not agree with all the proposals set out, but this is an important debate that needs to happen. When we look at what is going on right now across the country, we can see that people are really struggling. They are not just struggling financially; they are struggling to get around on public transport and they are struggling with the lack of basic infrastructure. This is the fundamental problem. Ireland is not working for people. It is not working for anyone. Our economic infrastructure and social infrastructure are completely inadequate.

The Social Democrats have set out a different approach. It is a social democratic approach which puts the State central to delivering and guaranteeing the social and economic infrastructure so that our economy functions. The reality, as I have stated previously, is that this Government is cruel - it stands over the highest level of evictions since the Famine and the highest level of homelessness on record - but that it is also incompetent. There are record budget surpluses, yet people cannot get around our capital city. They cannot access health services or housing, the most basic of infrastructure. Why is that the case? It is because the State, rather than building up its own capacity, is outsourcing.

We see this most clearly in the area of housing. Over €1 billion per year is going to for-profit providers of emergency accommodation and private landlords through the housing assistance payment, HAP. That is €1 billion every year that gives nothing by way of a permanent, public asset in return. Talk about poor value for money. In the area of childcare, there are similarly huge subsidies for the private sector. Why are we not building up public housing and public childcare models? These things would permanently bring down the cost of living. That is the structural change that is needed.

What is going on, as I said, is that there is still an issue with ideology and the belief that the market is the best way to deliver things. The Taoiseach gets up here and says that we have no substance in our proposals. That is spin. It is completely untrue and he knows it is untrue. We have set out detailed proposals, whether for a public childcare model, for a State construction company, and for solar for all. There are clear, detailed policies, but this Government is showing an absolute reluctance to take our proposal seriously, because it does not want to change and does not want to acknowledge the depth of this crisis and of the Government's failure. Communities need real investment. We believe that rather than cutting the tax of investor funds, we need a tax that in respect of the super-wealthy in this country to allow us to end child poverty.

Deputy Seamus Healy

Families and businesses are now living through the second global fossil fuel crisis in five years. We are increasingly vulnerable as long as we depend on energy imports. Unless we take action to diversify away from fossil fuels, we will again be hit by the next crisis. When that hits, pensioners, the sick and families will again worry about the cost of home heating oil. Farmers, fishers, agricultural contractors and bus companies will again face devastation as a result of increased diesel prices. Electricity and gas prices will go through the roof once more . Arrears on people's electricity and gas bills will hit new heights and families will be put to the pin of their collar to make ends meet.

We have to generate our own clean, affordable power. That means we must generate power from our own huge offshore wind and wave energy resources. Wind Energy Ireland says this requires sustained support from the Government, Eirgrid, the regulator and others in order to ensure that every available resource is aligned behind a single overriding objective. That objective is the energy independence of the country.

In the context of this motion, I want to refer to the question of balanced regional development. Dublin is bulging at the seams, which is creating significant issues across society, including climate, transport, water and wastewater issues, antisocial behaviour and crime. The 2024 IDA Ireland annual report showed a breakdown of 57% of projects in the regions and 43% in Dublin. I believe that split should be significantly higher for the regions, with a target of 75% to 80% for the regions and 20% to 25% for Dublin. Within the regions, there must be a balance between counties, with an even spread across county boundaries.

The town of Clonmel is a significant regional hub for south Tipperary, west Waterford, east Limerick and west Kilkenny. In 2001, South Tipperary County Council, in a far-seeing development, purchased the 270 acres of the Ballingarrane estate. IDA Ireland has purchased 50 acres of that site, and planning permission has been secured for a manufacturing facility of 110,000 sq. ft. It has access to water and electrical services and is a prime site. There is already successful development at the site. Questum is an enterprise accelerator centre, operated by the Technical University of the Shannon, with a number of incubation units and some 200 people employed. We already have in the area a number of flagship industries, including Abbott Vascular, Boston Scientific, and MSD Ballydine. The success of these industries should assist IDA Ireland in securing an anchor tenant for this site. Twenty-five years is far too long to wait for an anchor tenant for the site and the future of the town of Clonmel and the surrounding areas is linked with the development. I urge the Minister and IDA Ireland to ramp up the marketing of this site urgently.

Deputy Paul Murphy

I welcome the supports for ordinary people in this motion, but they do not go far enough. People are really suffering. They cannot afford food, rent, or childcare. There are 500,000 people who are in arrears on their electricity and gas bills.

We need more than once-off cost-of-living payments and temporary excise cuts.

We need a radical transformation of how this country is run. Instead of the Ireland for the rich we currently have, we need an Ireland where people come before profit. We are not going to get that from this Government or from right wing Independents. Noticeably missing from the motion is anything to do with rents. Rents are one of the biggest costs for very many people. They are going up at a record rate and the motion has nothing to say about it. Independent Ireland might come back at the end and explain why rents are missing. Is it because it is a party is made up of ex-Fianna Fáilers that represents the landlords, just like Fianna Fáil does? Is it 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 public ownership and run it on a not-for-profit basis to provide permanently low-cost, renewable electricity to every household in the country. We need massive public investment in offshore wind and solar. We need free retrofitting and solar panels for every household that needs it, including plug-in solar for renters and free, frequent and fast public transport.

We also need to stop building data centres. Again, there is nothing in the motion about the data centres that are currently using about a quarter of our electricity and driving up energy costs for everyone. The Government wants to build even more. It wants to pretend they will somehow save the tech jobs in Meta, Covalen and Oracle 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 in cutting fossil fuel dependency to protect us from the climate and cost-of-living crises. It is going to miss the 2030 emissions target by more than half and possibly by three quarters. A pathetic 4% reduction in emissions from agriculture, which is our biggest-emitting sector, is projected with existing measures. Given Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael prioritise profits above all else, you would think they at least might take action on the economic risk of being faced with having to pay up to €26 billion as a consequence but no chance. The climate Minister is back to openly admitting he is going to break the Government’s own climate law after claiming it was taken out of context when he first said it over Christmas. It is nearly June and there is still no climate action plan for 2026 and no date for when it is going to be published. Is that the vital political leadership the Taoiseach bloviated about at COP30 in Belém? People should be very angry about this. The Government’s failure to get us out of fossil fuel dependency is costing us thousands of euro on our energy bills, destroying the climate and is going to cost us billions of euro in climate fines that could have been spent on transitioning to low-cost renewable energy.

Deputy Brian Stanley

The debate we are having is very welcome and I thank Independent Ireland's group for putting it forward. With the economy, we have to radically reset how we are doing things and the next budget has to be different. Over €9.5 billion extra was given out last year in measures but none of it went to the disabled, the self-employed or PAYE workers. They were left out. The disabled finished up €1,400 a year worse off. The upcoming budget has to change that. We need a democratic, left republican budget this year. Income tax thresholds and tax bands need to be adjusted to favour middle- and low-income workers. Any one-off winter energy credits must be targeted and go to households that are on below €75,000 gross. I understand everybody cannot get everything and we should not do that but we should favour middle- and low-income families.

Retrofitting of homes has to be accelerated. I welcome the progress that has been made but some of the grants need to be improved. Some 880 homes in Laois added solar in 2024 to 2025 and 1,100 homes in total got some energy works in that period. That is welcome but out of over 30,000 homes that needs to be accelerated. We need the rent credits to be improved but most importantly we need measures to calm rents, reduce them and cap them. Affordable childcare must be addressed. For businesses insurance costs continue to be high. VAT changes we had in the last budget are going to favour large hotels and the big fast food companies. The changes should be altered and I propose a graduated scale, so it is 9% on the first €5 million of turnover and after that 13%. Let us favour the smaller coffee shops, businesses and hotels. That would benefit them.

On agri supports, we must face that we need added value. Of course we need financial supports for farmers but there also has to be added value if we are going to keep modest-sized family farms going. That is the reality. We have not even got off the blocks with anaerobic digestion. Farmers need to be getting a second income from their produce. We have a huge farm waste problem and there is an opportunity for pelleted fertiliser, which has been done in other countries like Italy, but we have not even started doing it. I welcome the proposal from the Government on flour production. Some counties, including Laois, have a big tradition of growing wheat. One of those flour mills needs to be located there. We need to boost organic production.

On haulage, we have to recognise the reality that there is an absence of an alternative there but we have biofuels and for some reason we are charging very high VAT on HVO, which is being used in trucks. That should be looked at. I am aware there is a European directive there but we need to go back to Europe on that.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Darren O'Rourke)

Go raibh maith agat.

Deputy Brian Stanley

The last thing is that on government procurement, we need to get better value for money. We cannot keep spending €336,000 on bike sheds, €2.5 billion on the children’s hospital and €1.4 million on a security hut. We need to spend money better.

Deputy Albert Dolan

It is really important to say that at any time a government needs to be both ready and able to respond to crises if and when they arise. We saw recently that when the Government was in a position where it could respond. It had the capital to deploy to help support people through the oil shock we are experiencing due to what is going on in the Middle East, and to the tune of €750 million. It is prudent financial management over the past few years that has got us into a position where we are able to respond should crisis arise.

However, there are people out there right now who are struggling. They are struggling to pay bills and to afford the cost of living in this country and they need to be supported in the upcoming budget. They need to be supported to see that hard work pays and that the work they are doing is valued both by society. They must be able to see that in their pockets as well. It is also important to recognise the ground is shifting. What used to be a career for life is no longer the same today and the jobs market is shifting rapidly and changing. It therefore becomes even more important the Government is prudent in how it manages its finances so we can help transition in the coming years to the newer economy we are going to experience. With that, we cannot leave people behind. We have to ensure people are upskilled, educated and given every opportunity to succeed, going forward. I firmly believe Ireland is best positioned in the European Union to be one of the most successful countries over the next five or ten years.

However, if we do not bring people with us and if everyone does not feel that success then what was it all for? As a Government, we have to ensure we have the financial power to be able to deliver serious public services. A lot of the work I have been doing on public spending and the management of that is so there is transparency for the public on how government is spending and how contract management is working. It is only when you get that transparency you can track what is happening and make a decision on how we could be more efficient, which is a problem the Government has at the moment. So much money has come in and one of the biggest frustrations I hear out there day in, day out is that the Government has all this money yet we are not seeing the boots on the ground and the projects being built, including large-scale infrastructure. That is where we need to see that acceleration. I welcome the work that is going on with the Critical Infrastructure Bill but we have to be able to show tangible results.

For me, priorities would be to see the double-tracking of the line from Athenry to Galway, and to see the 300-bed block get through the critical infrastructure pathway and be built.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

I am delighted to speak on this Bill. It is a good and timely debate that is badly needed in our country. We think back to the pioneering days of Seán Lemass and T. K. Whitaker, what they could do and what they did, and the vision, passion and integrity they had. To some extent, we have evolved from that. Of course, we joined the EU and we had loads of money, but we crashed the economy, not once, but twice, and we had the International Monetary Fund, IMF, here. There are soundings again this week that are terrifying people. It is said that property taxes should be increased, and that we have to rein in our spending and stop the reliance on data centres and those kinds of companies and outlets.

There is a social contract with the people, but it has been utterly shattered. We saw this recently with the protests about the cost of living and fuel. Ordinary people, hard-working mná agus fir na hÉireann, agus na buachaillí agus cailíní freisin, all came out because enough was enough and they could not cope. They see the waste. I will not even mention the items already mentioned that were news headlines here in the last year. Every day of the week, I mention spending, but there is no accountability whatsoever.

Take the Ukrainian housing, where one company, Sisk, had 11 contracts on 11 sites. Modular units worth a maximum of €80,000 have now cost €450,000 nationally. It is daylight robbery. In Clonmel, when I sat down with the company and the Office of Public Works, OPW, integration team, I was guaranteed that they would not cost a penny more than €200,000, with everything included, and I knew the site involved. We now find out that they cost €496,000, and that is not yet the final bill. It is an abomination, and that is only one area. This is widespread. With the children's hospital, my group and I argued that it should be put out on the M50. We knew the contract was written to rob the State. We have the Critical Infrastructure Bill but, unfortunately, the same people are writing that legislation, the people who have lost their way, who cannot seem to see outside the box and who are blinkered. Then we have the legions and battalions of NGOs running around Government Buildings in front of Ministers and behind Ministers. They have their ear, and they are dictating policy and legislation. It is a simple outrage that this is happening. We have completely lost our way.

With regard to education and skills, we have great, educated people here, but we need to reskill to have more trades and more practical work. With regard to wind energy and solar, why is it always big companies that are coming into communities to do these projects? CRH is trying to build a big biodigester near Thurles in Tipperary at the site of the old lime plant in Killough. It is antagonising people because it has money, and it sees nothing except the money and greed. It does not want to respect communities, and it will not engage with communities or try to work with them.

There is a lot of work to be done here. The sun is shining and the hay is to be made, but I do not know what hay is being made.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

The ground is still too damp in Clare to get the tractors in for the hay, but we are aiming for July, all things going well, and maybe we will get a bit of silage as well.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

Clare still has the hurling, at least.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

Yes, we are still hurling.

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I support the Government amendment. I thank the Minister of State for his efforts. It is very important that we have fiscal prudence. I was elected on the same day as the Minister of State back in 2020. That whole five-year period felt quite different. There was relative global economic stability, whereas things have been anything but on the global scene since then, with several wars in the Middle East and the Russo-Ukrainian war now going beyond the four-year mark, and all the turbulence that has brought. Ireland, as a small island nation on the western periphery of Europe, very much feels those shocks when they happen.

That sets the whole budgetary context. It sets the need for prudence to be intrinsic in all of our plans as we make our way forward for budget 2027, which will be announced in October. Prudence has got us to a stable point. Our neighbours in the United Kingdom, with a much larger economy that for centuries had a dominant position over ours and that of most of continental Europe, have very much felt the shock in recent years. That is down to political instability. Brexit has come back to haunt them time and again, and it continues to destabilise them politically and economically.

In line with what others have said, I believe it is important that, as we begin to accelerate preparations for budget 2027, middle Ireland be thought of in this budget. All sorts of measures were brought in last October, some of them popular and some not so popularly received by the public, but the type of people I would like to see accommodated centrally in the next budget are those who get out and work. The Minister of State's former leader called them the people who got up early in the morning. We all get up early, or at some point in the morning. It is the low-to-middle-income earners paying taxes who are very much squeezed. The income tax has to be paid, but when they need a safety net, they find that the thresholds set by Departments, such as the Department of Social Protection, do not allow for them. People are better off in this country if they are extremely wealthy or extremely poor, because they have either the wealth to withstand the shocks that come into their household or they have an income sufficiently low that the safety nets protect them at times of difficulty.

Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Deputy Alan Dillon)

I welcome the opportunity to close this debate. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Charlie McConalogue, for his opening remarks, which I will expand on. As he outlined, the Government opposes the motion brought forward by the Independent Ireland Deputies. The Government is acutely aware of the pressures faced by many households and businesses across the country as a result of the increased energy and fuel prices on the back of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. In response, we have taken a flexible approach, helping in a meaningful way across a number of areas and making sure that ordinary people see the benefit of those interventions. Importantly, we are doing this in a way that does not jeopardise our long-term objectives, which are centred around permanent changes to our energy system so people do not have to face rapid price increases in the future.

To support those affected by the energy price spikes, we have introduced a €750 million package of supports, one of the largest packages across the European Union. The impact of the supports that we introduced has been significant, with 27 cent off a litre of petrol, 32 cent off a litre of diesel and 7.4 cent off a litre of green diesel. We have extended the fuel allowance, expanded the diesel rebate scheme and reduced the NORA levy. We have also opened the fuel support scheme for farmers, with a scheme for hauliers to follow in the coming weeks.

The Department of Finance estimates that, taken together, this package has reduced the annual rate of inflation from April to July by 0.6 percentage points. These measures are targeted to support the essential sectors that we depend on and those most vulnerable to price increases. While they are temporary in nature, time-bound and proportionate, they are in line with the longer term fiscal strategy.

Of course, these temporary supports are only one aspect of the Government’s response. They build on measures introduced over the past two budgets that provide real benefits for households and businesses across the country. These include the 9% VAT rate for hospitality and hairdressing, taking effect from 1 July, that will support over 150,000 jobs. The reduced 9% VAT rate on electricity and gas will remain in place until the end of 2030. This is one of the lowest rates across the EU. The increases in core welfare rates benefit some 1.5 million people, including pensioners, people with disabilities, carers and lone parents. These measures have been carefully designed to be long-lasting and fiscally sustainable.

In the long term, our strategic dependence on fossil fuels has major economic implications. Moving towards domestic sources of renewable energy will reduce the impact of shocks like these and will also help to insulate people from dramatic increases in energy costs, such as we have seen in recent months and previously during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is why we are investing record levels of funding in the energy infrastructure through the national development plan.

We know that money alone is not the answer to every problem. In order to achieve our long-term success, the institutions of the State and, crucially, the private sector need to be able to deliver more efficiently and achieve better value for money. The accelerating infrastructure action plan will do just that. This plan is on track to speed up the delivery and therefore lower costs for critical infrastructure such as energy transmission. We recently achieved 8 GW of installed onshore renewable energy capacity, a major clean energy milestone on the path toward green energy efficiency and security.

In addition to this, budget 2026 allocated record funding for home retrofitting, including fully funded upgrades to the warmer homes scheme for those in energy poverty. These investments generate real benefits for households by making Irish homes more sustainable and more energy efficient and by lowering energy costs. The national energy affordability task force, which was established in June 2025, will further accelerate on the implementation of measures to improve energy affordability and security. The energy affordable task force will provide a coherent cross-Government strategy for reducing energy costs for Irish businesses and consumers in the long term.

In all of this, it is vital to recognise that the Government's ability to respond to energy shocks and to invest in strategic energy infrastructure is made possible by sensible management of the public finances. As we take decisive action to support businesses and households in the short term, we also must maintain our ability to respond to future shocks and safeguard our economy into the long term. The medium-term fiscal and structural plan, published in December 2025, allows us to do that. It provides a framework for maintaining a sustainable budgetary strategy into the future and by setting out an overall medium-term expenditure path. The medium-term plan provides the Government with the flexibility to respond to challenges in a timely and appropriate manner. By focusing on the medium term, it safeguards overall fiscal sustainability. It is important to predict how external events will evolve and what new challenges will emerge into the future.

The broader global environment remains incredibly uncertain. As a small, open economy, Ireland is particularly vulnerable. As such, the best approach for the Government is to ensure that we remain flexible to the challenges that lie ahead. Over the long term, we must continue to reduce our exposure to international energy markets by investing in secure domestic energy supply. Our fiscal strategy, set out in the medium-term plan, allows us to achieve both these aims. It ensures that we have the ability to respond to the challenges quickly and appropriately while maintaining the sustainability of the public finances and investing in the long term.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

The contributions from the Government side and their colleagues show why we are in the position we are in. I spoke to some of those who contributed. They said they would like to see the people in the middle, the working class, looked after in this budget. One person told me he got elected the same day as the Minister of State, which was the same day I got elected. Since I got elected, they are the people I have been looking to have looked after. It has taken the Government six years to even come out and say that it wants the people who are working to be looked after. Six years later, this is what the Government comes out with.

I will give the Minister of State a small insight into the six years his party has been in government. We will go to the working, squeezed middle. We will take an average house as an example. If somebody wanted to buy or build a 2,000 sq. ft house, it would have cost of €240,000 plus VAT. That meant that five or six years ago, that house cost of €272,406. Let us travel forward. Today, five or six years later, that same house costs €454,000, including VAT. The VAT to the Government has gone from €32,400 to €54,000. That is a tax take on somebody trying to provide their own home. It is the working squeezed middle. This is two people who are working, trying to provide a roof over their head, probably trying to start a family and trying to secure their livelihoods. What the Government has done with the stroke of a pen is that has taken €22,000 extra in tax from people building or buying their own house.

That is not all the Government has done. I will use the model of 40% of a person's income to afford a mortgage. Five years ago, if a person had to get a mortgage of €270,000 to build a house, they would have to have earnings of €3,830 per month to afford a repayment of €1,532 per month. That is based on a 4.75% interest rate. A person would end up paying €189,650 in interest on a house worth €270,000. By the time everything was repaid, a person would repay €460,000. Today, that house would cost €450,000. A person would have to have earnings of €6,252.50 per month for repayments of €2,500 per month. In five years, the Government has almost doubled the cost of buying or building a house. The Government has increased its tax take not only on the building of the house but the person is now paying 40% in income tax. It is tax on top of tax. That is what the Government has done in five years.

Every one of the Government speakers said there was so much money and that was why the Government could give the targeted €750 million. They said it was due to the war in Ukraine, the war in Iran and Covid. These are all knee-jerk reactions. The Minister, Deputy Chambers, told us yesterday that if the Government had to do this, it would have to put X amount of money away every year to counteract this. The problem is the Government has gone €1 billion over budget on a hospital that has not been delivered yet. It has misspent on bike sheds and huts - €1.4 million. If you add up all the money the Government has misspent, that would be money that would there today to introduce measures when prices rise. When fuel hits a certain level, for example, it could be automatically added. All the money the Government has misspent would actually cover the people today. It would bring down inflationary costs.

Everything the Government has done has driven inflation. It has doubled the cost of buying and building a house. It has doubled the cost of buying a car. It has doubled the cost of running a vehicle and it has doubled its tax intake on the same thing. That is all the Government is doing.

Yesterday I spoke to officials from the Department. I asked what the VAT intake was up by this year. The first thing they said was that it was up by 6%. Some 40 minutes later, they said it was only up by 3%. The officials do not even know what they are doing in their own Department. That is how clued in they are. These are the people advising the Minister. These are the people the Minister and the Government is defending every single day. The problem we have here is that Ministers are just fronts for Departments that are making mistakes and the Ministers are not holding them to account. The Ministers are just fronts and they are told what to do every day. When are Ministers going to take responsibility and take on their own Departments and tell them they are wrong? Tell people they are not the right people for the job, to get out and to get people who can actually manage the purse and finances and get us accountability. When are Ministers going to stand up for that? What is wrong is that Ministers are deciding to put their careers over the people of this country. It is all down to career politicians. The day people do not want me in this House, I will be quite happy to go. The day I cannot contribute to try to help the vulnerable people in this country, I will be quite happy to go.

The only reason I am here is to help those vulnerable people. It is not to get a job in Cabinet or a promotion like most of the Cabinet. They will do and say anything to get a better job. I do not mind if the Government delivers something. I do not mind if anyone in the House delivers something. My job in the House is to make sure that delivery is done. The Government can have all of the praise in the world for delivering once the job is done. That is a person who does not mind about careers. I have my career. I have family. I have dependents. They are crippled week in and week out with over-taxation by the Government. The Government has said it will deliver and provide a scheme here and there. The only scheme is the scheme the Government is doing for itself.

The Government introduced a retrofit grant. I have explained the cost of building over the past five years. The retrofit grant for oil-based properties to insulate houses requires silicone and PVC which are oil-based products, the cost of which have increased. The grants are worth nothing. The Government puts pressure on something that is inflated. The Government has put pressure on an oil-based product and is talking about the environment.

The Government is investing taxpayers' money and driving inflation. The Government has decided that when something is under pressure, it will put more pressure on it. We are one-tenth of 1% of global emissions. People in the country are going hungry. The Government thinks more about targeting something and trying to put fossil fuel vehicles off the road when they are the only thing that vulnerable people can afford in order to go to work. That is what the Government is doing. It is punishing everyone.

The Government has a big wad of money which it misspent. There should be a full inquiry into Departments regarding the misuse of funding. That is what should be done. We could then see how many people that misspent money could have helped. There are many career politicians in government who give an old spatter now and then but are not seen in their own areas. They are only seen there for a picture. They run in and out. They give all the promises to get themselves elected, but do not want to do any delivery. That is the issue with Government. Until the Government takes on its Departments and makes them accountable, it is only a front. That is what it is.

Minister are backing up something they are told before they walk into the House. They are handed a paper. I do my own. I do not need a Department to tell me it is wrong because I can see it in all of the paperwork we get and the misspent money in this country is all down to Departments giving the Government bad advice. Members of Government say, "Yes sir", "No sir" and "I want a promotion for that". That is what they do. The Government encourages and promotes people for doing wrong and every Irish person in this country is suffering.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 27 May 2026