Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If other people who interacted with others while they were speaking had a bit of cop-on, they might have had a bit more time themselves.

We are looking at the Minister's budget and he had €5 billion left over from excess taxes after the Government did its accounts this year. There is €5 billion left over and people have increases in their energy costs of up to 300%. The Government is saying it will help people if their energy bills have gone up 30% since last September. I think that is what it said. That is welcome but at the same time the Government is taking in a massive amount of tax due to the increased cost of energy and oil.

I was the first person to highlight the fuel problem in this country when I brought a truck in the gate of Leinster House in November of the year before last. I could see the problem at that time because I am from a farming background and I am self-employed. I could see the issues that were coming down the line for transport and agriculture. I told the Government at that time, 12 months ahead, that this was going to create inflation. I said it was going to increase the cost of food production. I said it was going to increase the cost of people being transported to their workplace when they have no alternative.

When the Minister is being driven around, which I have no issue with, he might take one look out the window and look at the average age of a vehicle. As I was heading out of Dublin last week I decided I would do a survey and look at the average age of a vehicle in Dublin. The most popular cars in Dublin are from 2013 and 2014. Outside every door and house in Dublin there is a car. When you try to get in here in the mornings there are three lanes of traffic coming in and three lanes going out. The people in Dublin who have transport still cannot avail of it because it does not work if you have got a young family. If you have two or three children and they are going in different directions, public transport does not work. We have 2.3 million cars in the country and people in Dublin have a short journey to work. People in rural areas have all the long journeys. That includes going to the shop, to the school if you do not have transport, to the doctor, to work, to matches and to training. It is all driving.

The Minister's party did a survey recently that showed it is afraid it is going to lose all its rural Deputies. It would be right if that happened because they have not represented the people they were supposed to, that is, the vulnerable people of rural Ireland. I have mentioned the Red Cow before. It was a Limerick man that had it and it was a Limerick man that named it but I am afraid the Government has forgotten about anything beyond there. I hope it is taken out on the Government parties on the doors. I hope it is taken out on the party members who failed to represent people and who came to Dublin and nodded "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir", which left their own people vulnerable. The Government has not tackled this because it does not understand rural living and it does not understand business.

The Government is now looking at the fuel cost. The price of picking up an acre of silage went from €90 to €160. Where does the Government think the price of that is going to go? The milk price went up but now it has come down. The Government is talking about putting the price of fuel back up again, and then there are the taxes it is taking out. The Government has 50 cent tax on a litre of petrol and 44 cent tax on a litre of diesel, yet green diesel and white diesel are nearly on a par. The Government is taking it out on the people who are trying to produce food here and trying to make their business sustainable. I spoke earlier about the warehousing of tax. I said people spent their savings to keep their businesses open because they thought it was only for a short time during Covid. They had a tax liability and warehoused it thinking there would be light at the end of the tunnel. However, every time the subsidies come in it does not cover the increases in energy costs, so people are losing all the time and the Government is not helping.

I welcome what the Government has done with the hotels, which I asked it for as well, because I understand the business myself. I understand how important it is for the circular economy and the local employment it creates. When people come to the hotels they travel all around the country and spend in the local shops, so it is a circular economy.

It might be advisable if the Government got someone in from the business sector to explain how SMEs survive and how they have to work.

I ask for the Minister's advice. If he will please sit down with us, I will explain to him simply how we can help all businesses. I will leave the rest of my three minutes for the Minister to sum up, or will he have time after these three minutes?

See this speech in context