Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have brought to the Minister a motion to ensure a level of fairness for people who are suffering the huge impact of the cost-of-living crisis, in particular, people living in rural areas who have to travel to work and often have long distances to travel because they have no other option. People are being burdened with increasing fuel prices. The two increases to come this year will push prices up well above what they are now.

As the Minister knows, I live in a Border region. For many years, when I was a youngster, people went to the North every week to get fuel and fill their car. When they were there, they also bought their bags of coal and other goods and brought them back across the Border. That was common in every community in the Border region. We do not want to go back to that situation again.

Filling stations in towns along the Border were closed for almost two decades because there was nobody shopping in them. Those towns were desolate. The Minister needs to take responsibility and recognise that while we are very fortunate at the moment that the Exchequer is booming, it is certainly not a boom that ordinary people and workers are feeling.

The Government can afford to leave this as it is for now and not bring in these increases. In fact, it could reverse the increases from earlier this year. We call on it to do so to ensure fair play for people who are working hard and doing everything they possibly can but find it very difficult to survive and manage, particularly as fuel prices continue to increase.

All the van drivers who make deliveries to shops and the commercial hauliers will also be affected by these increases. The Minister needs to recognise that they will have a huge impact on communities throughout the country but especially in the Border region. We do not want to the situation I described to come back again. As someone from a Border region who knows those communities, recognises the problems we had in the past and does not want to see them return, I plead with the Minister to reverse the hike from earlier in the year and postpone the two hikes he plans to bring in. We recognise the Government coffers are doing very well. There is no need to go ahead with this. Give the ordinary working people a break.

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