Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to discuss a measure that shows the Government was unfair and underhanded in the 2021 budget and that has been enacted in legislation. Everyone knows that Sinn Féin opposed carbon tax. We believe that climate change can only be addressed by holding big business to account. I am not sure whether someone from Fine Gael is now in charge of the lobbying for big business and corporations but whoever is in charge they are doing a very good job with this.

In 2009, the Institute of Public Health in Ireland found a direct association between fuel poverty and poor health. People living in fuel poverty have greater healthcare needs. They cannot afford to keep their homes warm and they suffer because of that. They suffer in the short term but also in the long term.

In 2019, the EU SILC, statistics on income and living conditions, analysis showed that almost 400,000 people in Ireland suffer or experience fuel deprivation. Shockingly, we are among the top five countries for energy price hikes. How can the Government justify adding to that fuel poverty? Instead of sneaking in carbon taxes that will increase every year for the next ten years, this Government should focus on bringing forward Sinn Féin's legislation that would ban winter disconnections.

I have already made my feelings on carbon tax known. The carbon tax increases are harmful, nasty and most unfair on those who cannot afford to pay them. Children will suffer the most from fuel poverty. That is according to the ESRI's own statistics. Children who are already suffering will suffer more and that is a direct result of a decision taken by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party.

We can talk all we want about climate change and the need for action but that does not need to be action directed at ordinary people who are struggling to survive. This Government is so out of touch with ordinary workers and families that it cannot even imagine how harmful this policy is for people. It would do the Government good to take a minute to listen to ordinary people, step away from cronyism and big business and look at the impact of its decisions.

On 25 March, I raised the issue of student nurses not getting paid even though they were working at the front line. At the time, they had lost their part-time jobs, which we know students need to pay their way through college, but because they were front-line workers they could not work. The then Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, announced that student nurses would get paid and I, along with the student nurses, believed that the matter had been resolved. It turns out now, however, that it has not been resolved and, once again, student nurses are being exploited. The hypocrisy shown by this Government is a disgrace. It is protecting banks, vulture funds and large corporations but there is no protection for student nurses working on the front line in our healthcare service.

The scheme established to ensure student nurses would be paid as healthcare assistants recognised they were expected to work as full-time workers, but now it has been disbanded. Where is the recognition? I ask that student nurses be paid directly because they are doing vital work.

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