Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also compliment Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion that will try to deal with the cost of living issue for people and in this case, excise on fuel. The Government made a big hoo-ha about giving the excise rebates and they were very welcome. However to put the excise on now, especially for rural Ireland, the farming community, hauliers and everybody else is heartless and intolerable. Tomorrow is Lá Bealtaine, the first day of May. It is a very special day in the church calendar. There are a lot of piseógs and people go round and shake holy water on fields - na páircí beaga agus na páircí mór - and on our houses, machinery and everything else. We do it at home. Where is the Government's vision? I raised this issue last week under the Order of Business or Questions on Promised Legislation and I was told by the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, we would have to wait until the budget. This is happening now. On the one hand the Government is, mar dhea, giving business supports and then tomorrow is the closing date for applying for them. Yet, the Government is going this. Nobody else is doing it, it is the Government that is doing this. There is this scheme and that scheme but they are so convoluted and the take-up of them is small. However, the Government will not do the simple things that make basic sense and that are simple and that mean something to the people who are trying to survive, provide services and plant their crops with the hope of reaping them during the harvest. Please God they will if this weather lasts. We had a good chance last week and buíochas le Dia for that. It is incredible that the Government is so out of touch and would come back to take away the reliefs it had given people and that were so badly needed. It is incredible that the Government would remove them at such a sensitive, difficult and desperate time for householders, small businesses, motorists going to work and all of the hauliers, from the bread vans to the biggest trucks. It adds cost to everything else. The Government is defunct, should pack its bags, get out and go to the people and let some new Government that can govern be elected.

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