Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, I take this opportunity thank the Labour Party for tabling this important motion for us to debate here in the House. I am glad the Minister is present.

It is important that we speak openly about what is happening at the moment. In my constituency of Galway East, there is a huge amount of angst over the fact that fuel prices are going up. The reason for this angst is that the car is the essential mode of transport many people in the constituency. It is important to point out that the carbon tax is driving up that price right now, as well as all the other prices. The people who are paying this carbon tax and who need their cars as an essential to travel to work, to draw their pensions or whatever it is, have no other mode of transport. They are getting nothing back from that. It is important that we recognise that the carbon tax are not giving anything back to these communities. They cannot see it. While it will happen, it is not happening right now. We need to look at the carbon tax for people in areas where the car is the only mode of transport. It is ill-timed, given the rising increases.

As a member of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters, I would also raise the fact that people with disabilities who are on a fixed income are really suffering at the moment. They do not have enough money to live, never mind to meet the price increases. An Indecon report stated that for a person with disability, the cost of living is in excess of €9,000 per annum more than for those without a disability. That needs to be examined. The transport support schemes for people with disabilities and the primary medical certificate need to be sorted out as a matter of urgency. The resignation of the appeals board again shows that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we are trying to support people with disabilities. I ask the Minister to take that on board as a matter of urgency.

It is all very well to talk and criticise or whatever, but we need to provide solutions to these problems. The first thing that should be done is that anybody who is on a fixed social welfare income and who is in fuel poverty should have their income linked to the consumer price index as a baseline. The reason for that is that they will achieve the same income regardless of where inflation is going. On top of that, we should look at how we can repair the stagnation in their incomes during the recession when the Government did not give increases in social welfare. People who are retired and people who are in fuel poverty deserve something more than what they are getting at the moment. I ask the Government to look at this in a meaningful way.

I refer also to agriculture and food production. One of the biggest challenges facing farmers right now is the cost of fertiliser. People might ask what that has to do with the cost of living. It will directly feed into the cost of food. It will directly feed into an increase of the cost of milk, meat and whatever will be on the shelf. That is not scaremongering. This year, fertiliser costs three times the price that it did last year. That is continuing unabated. It is important that we look at that in a way that addresses the problems that are rising with inflation. I do not believe that increasing wages will solve all the problems. It may add to further inflation. We need to be careful about how we manage this. Some people will say that some of the increases that are happening now will abate and we will end up getting back to normal. However, the reality is that if the price increases stagnate now, they will remain at that level. That is a hell of a lot higher than they were this time last year.

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