I thank the Deputy for raising this. I am conscious that he knows a lot about this industry and machines. It is an area the Government is committed to endeavouring to assist people with because I am conscious that the energy costs are real, for everyone. They have an inflationary effect on the economy and therefore affect everyone more broadly.
However, I am also conscious that, beyond that, particular sectors of the economy are particularly badly effected and they are crucial sectors, not just for the jobs they create, although that is important, but also from a supply chain point of view. As the Deputy correctly said, they do the construction of our homes and critical buildings and the production of our food. That is why we are working across the Government in the here and now to see what we can do further to assist in the budget next Tuesday. The Minister, Deputy Heydon, is working intensively on issues related to agriculture. I met farmers at the ploughing championships who are looking to make improvements to their buildings with solar panels and the like. They need a bit of help. There is a view that we need to ensure the farm support scheme that was in place is extended because the crisis certainly has not abated. I met hauliers recently as well as the Irish Farmers' Association, IFA and the Irish Creamery Milk Supplier Association, ICMSA. The diesel rebate scheme is in place to the end of the year and, as the Deputy said, we are giving consideration to the issues of home heating oil and gas. There are limits to what any government can do. There are fiscal limits and limits in terms of having to work within EU directives.
The Deputy specifically asked about construction workers. The Minister, Deputy Chambers, and I had a good meeting with the Construction Industry Federation recently. The Taoiseach and I have discussed this too and the Government will bottom out how best to bring forward support to the construction sector. The Deputy referenced previous comments of the Taoiseach on the matter. We will do that shortly.
More broadly, while cost pressures on people are real and many of them are materialised through energy costs - there is no doubt about that - there are a number of ways the Government can try to help. One is by doing direct things we can do to help with energy. We are looking at all of them. However, there are other levers we can also pull because for farmers, hauliers, construction workers or workers in any part of the economy, if we can reduce tax on their take-home pay and improve what their payslips look like at the end of the week or month, that is a way of helping. If people are dependent on childcare services and we can drive down the cost of childcare, that is a way of helping. If people are at particular risk of fuel poverty - almost 500,000 homes receive support - and we can do more to help them, that is a way of helping. For older people who live alone trying to heat the house, there are other ways through the social welfare system that are also ways of helping.
I am not saying the Deputy is saying this, but I just make the point. We cannot look at how to help with the cost of energy only through energy policy. We have to look at all the levers available to the Government to try to reduce costs in general for people, because they do not look at it through Departments or silos; they look at their bottom line and we will endeavour to do as much as we can to help next week.
