Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)

-----which cost almost €1,500 to fill, if it cost half that it would still be an enormous sum of money.

People are desperate. This comes back to a rural-urban divide in that those living in the countryside, by the very fact of where they are, must rise every morning and try to get work. Whether they go in a motor car or in a van, they are continuously using fuel. That is why they see it as a particularly bad hit by the Government on them to put this further burden of cost on their travel.

I never thought I would live to see the day, which is fast approaching, when fuel costs €2 a litre. If one says it quickly and does not think about it, one does not realise how bad it is, but it is when one comes along to fill a gallon can at a petrol or diesel pump and one sees the small drop one is getting for a considerable sum of money that one realises it is outrageous.

To be honest, and the Minister is extremely busy but at the same time he has his constituents, he does not have his head in the sand and he knows what is going on, this is - besides the septic tanks-----

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