Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

Let us not be emotional about this. The Minister of State should look to the program for Government and consider how she has failed to live up even to her own promise. Every Minister made a direct commitment that there would be a fuel poverty strategy published in 2009. There is nothing more telling of the Government's disdain for those living in fuel poverty or other forms of poverty than the fact that it did not deliver on that commitment.

When Ministers from the Green Party lecture us in the House about renewables, changing our ways and climate change, they should note that the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security published today a draft Bill on climate change. The Government should prove itself on climate change by debating the Bill in the House. It has all-party agreement. Let us do what needs to be done to meet the big challenge, which the Green Party preaches about but on which it does not deliver.

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