Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We will call it the dream of reaching our targets by 2030 in the interim, and out to 2050. Is this a dream or is the reality really a nightmare? We will not be able to do it. If we try to continue, we are going to break people completely and put them in a position where they quite simply will not be able to afford to pay their bills, run their households, educate their children or do the basic day-to-day living they need to do. That is a real worry. The Taoiseach said yesterday we were in unprecedented times. Due to the cut-off from Russian oil, we are going to have 90% less oil coming into the European Union than we would have had before. The reality of that has not been thought through at all yet. Where is it going to leave us? Where is it going to leave the people we represent? They would have choked on their porridge this morning on hearing that even if we implement everything it looks like we are not going to hit our targets, so we are now going to have to squeeze the noose a bit more and increase carbon taxes more and more. Surely this is a time when we should be saying that we have to live for now and trying to make it possible, plausible and feasible for people to live now, rather than being so obsessive about putting more carbon taxes on people.