Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. Deputy Healy-Rae was quite hard on the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications given that this Bill gives people €3,000 for a bicycle with a basket on the front. God forbid if people have to go up the road with their car because they will be paying for it.

I have four amendments in this grouping relating to carbon tax and the price of petrol and diesel. We understand the limitations around the energy directive from the European Union but these all fit within the energy tax directive. That allows the Government additional scope to reduce the price of petrol, diesel and marked gas oil, which particularly affects the agricultural sector, and also reduce the price of home heating oil. Let me be very clear: what we want to do in these amendments is reduce petrol by a further 15 cent, diesel by 12 cent and reduce the cost of a 1,000 l fill of home heating oil by €117. What this Government has done to the 37% of families in the State that heat their homes with home heating oil is nothing less than a disgrace. It is absolutely disgraceful that that has happened. That is more pronounced in areas like my own and Deputy Healy-Rae's, rural communities where two thirds of families will be using home heating oil to keep them warm this winter. The temperatures have dropped in the last week. Yet this Government has decided that there should be no decrease whatsoever. Indeed, what it is asking us to do, and what it would vote for if it had an opportunity but unfortunately we will not get one, is to increase the cost of home heating oil again next year. That is just absolutely disgraceful. It is out of touch. All the backbenchers in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, when this debate is guillotined in the next few minutes, should remember what they are voting for. They are voting to put up the price of home heating oil again in this Finance Bill. It makes no sense whatsoever. It is an ideological battle that Deputy Eamon Ryan and the Green Party are fighting but it is out of touch with the reality of where people are at. People are buying home heating oil by the jar. They are not phoning up and looking for a 500 l or 1,000 l fill. They are buying it by 5 gallon drums because they cannot afford to fill their tanks. The Government is so out of touch and so under a rock when it comes to the pressures that real people are facing, particularly in the country, that they sat around the Cabinet table and decided to put up the price of home heating oil a little bit further, despite the facts. The facts are that home heating oil has increased by 145% since January of last year.

The other disgrace is that this Bill is coming to a guillotine. The Government has imposed a guillotine on this. We are at amendment No. 30. We cannot deal with so many other amendments, amendments I put down that I did not even get a chance to discuss because of the guillotine that has been imposed. We are dealing with another issue in this Bill as well. Every backbencher should hear this. When they come in in a minute to vote for this Bill, they are voting to put up the price of housing through the levy they are putting on concrete blocks and poured concrete. I would also point out to the Minister, if I had a chance to discuss this amendment, that there is a flaw in how the legislation is drafted and it will come back to haunt the Government. I do not think parts of it will stand up legally. I will leave it at that given the limitation on time and the fact that other Deputies want to come in.

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