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

I have always said and I am sure of the fact that the Minister is a nice and sincere man. However, he and the late Michael Jackson hold one thing in common and that is the two of them lived in never never land. I would like to welcome the Minister today into the real world where people are struggling to pay for their electricity, home heating oil and children's education and to carry on with the basic day-to-day living. I am not a climate change denier; I will never be accused of being any such thing. I know we have to make changes, but there are changes we can afford to make and others we might want, but are not able, to do.

If the Green Party is so worried about everything, why has it not used its opportunity in government? Why has the Minister done nothing for the forestry sector? He has done nothing for people who want to plant or thin trees or for people who want to build access roads to forestries to take out timber. He has ensured people in the horticultural sector now have to import 4,000 tonnes of peat from Latvia. Some 200 lorries bring it to and from the port every time. The Minister should think of the carbon footprint, because he thought it was a good idea to run out of here one day and shut down Bord na Móna.

What does the Minister have to say about the importation of peat briquettes from Germany? What is the carbon footprint there, instead of having our own production of peat briquettes here in Ireland, because he shut it down? He has done nothing for those people. What has the Minister done in government to bring in zero-rate VAT on insulation products? He has done absolutely nothing.

What has the Minister done, only offer grants to people that they cannot get? What does he have to say to the 72-year-old man who asked me to stand up in the Dáil and ask the Minister a question. He is 72 years of age, he wants a grant to insulate my house and he has been told he has to wait at least two years. What does the Minister have to say to that man? He need not start telling me about the millions of euro he is pumping into insulation when, at the stroke of pen, the Government could have changed the VAT rate which would have been meaningful, real and attainable there and then. The Minister is forcing the people in Ireland to endure the highest electricity and heating bills in the EU. He is failing to safeguard the interest of the Irish consumer.

The price of petrol and diesel has gone up 30% or 40% since March. I recently met with the Irish Road Haulage Association. What has the Minister done for those people? He has done nothing. He is failing to recognise we are an island. Things have to be imported into this country. They do not fall out of the sky. The things we use every day are delivered by road. What has the Minister done for those people? He has done nothing. Again, he is failing to safeguard the interest of the Irish consumers. Myself and my colleagues in the Rural Independent Group were seeking a cut on the VAT rate for diesel and petrol, gas, home heating oil and electricity; a reversal of the increase to the carbon tax; a once-off energy voucher for low-income families; and a 50% cut on excise duty on motor fuel. It is hypocritical for the Government to lecture the public on the using of green energy sources, while benefiting enormously from the increased tax revenues from traditional fuels.

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