Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion and thank People Before Profit for bringing it forward. Families and workers in the midlands and across Laois and Offaly must contend with increased fuel costs and the worry of how to keep the heating and lights on this winter. Our region in particular will be hit hard. Unfortunately, the Government continues to implement proposals that disproportionately hurt lower-income families, rural households and the elderly without providing affordable and accessible alternatives.

It is a key point that we in Sinn Féin have continuously outlined our alternatives, including by publishing legislation that would ban utility disconnections during the fuel allowance season. We have budgeted for an increase in income limits for fuel allowance to ensure more workers, families and pensioners can be provided with support. We also want semi-State companies, such as Bord na Móna, the ESB and Coillte, to be given resources and be allowed to develop renewable energy projects so we are not always at the mercy of multinationals and big corporations.

We have called for the PSO levy to be reformed to ensure it is levied on the larger and most profitable users, including data centres, rather than ordinary households. These are the people who will be hurt most by the carbon tax, thanks to Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Labour Party and the Green Party, all of which backed these major hikes over the next ten years.

The people who will be hurt most this winter are ordinary people such as those in counties Laois and Offaly who, in most cases, have no energy alternatives. Laois-Offaly has a limited amount of public transport, a very low number of retrofitted homes and a population that was and is highly dependent on solid fuel for home heating. I made the point to the Minister of State's party leader at the climate committee three years ago and again two years ago that some of the homes in my constituency will not be retrofitted until 2030, 2035 or 2040. The inhabitants of those houses will be dead from cold long before then and the retrofitting will not matter to them. The Minister of State needs to get that.

When the Government increases carbon tax yet again in a few weeks, there will be further price hikes on briquettes, gas bills, motor fuel and home heating oil, all of which will hit rural households, low-income workers and families. Loading carbon tax on workers and families in the midlands or any other part of the State who have little or no alternative is unfair. They cannot afford the alternatives. The Government will not change behaviour if people do not have alternatives. A bale of briquettes that previously cost €3.40 now costs €6.50. It does not have to be that way.

I say "Well done" to the Minister of State on his policies. Sinn Féin wants there to be a transition. However, horticultural peat moss is being shipped in from Latvia. Shiploads of it are arriving here. How is that taking action on climate change? How is the carbon footprint of importing briquettes from eastern Europe and Germany that are filled with oil and all sorts of other substances while factories are being closed down in the midlands doing anything for the climate? Sinn Féin has set out its policies to tackle this issue. The Government must take it seriously and deal with it in the budget.

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