Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to get a chance to speak on this amendment, but it looks like it will not be accepted by the Minister. No amendments will be accepted, similar to what happened with the climate action Bill. It looks like it is going to be "my way or the highway" when it comes to the amendments.

The discussion should be on the €100 subsidy.

It goes nowhere near where it should have gone. As I said earlier, I do not know whether the Minister has ever been in the countryside, on a farm. When they are put out for the first time, calves are often seen jumping and gadding around the place. That is what the Government has been doing for the past week. Where has the Government been for the past 12 months? The country is on its knees and the Government disappeared. Now the Government is jumping around as if there has been a crisis this week only. There has been a crisis for months and months. My colleagues in the Rural Independent Group and I have been calling on the Government to put in place protective measures for people who cannot pay their electricity bills, put fuel in the car or buy fertiliser for the farm. The Government stood idly by until maybe a few among them went back to their constituencies in recent weeks and got it in the neck. The €100 is a pittance. No one should ever disregard getting a few quid but, Lord God, people have been hit with bills. I have listened to people who have the heating turned off in their homes and who are seriously suffering because of the measures the Government has brought forward. The Government needs to bring in emergency measures and a mini-budget immediately. One hundred euro will go nowhere.

The Minister can deny all the amendments before him if he so wishes and if he does not want to co-operate with others in here - that is fine and that will be his choice - but the public will have their say at the end of the day. I am just sorry to think that those in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are backing the Green Party in the way they are because the public will have their say on each and every one of those Deputies as well. The Government has left people perishing with the cold, unable to turn on their lights, unable to pay their electricity bills and unable to pay for home heating oil. The Government is dreaming and dreaming and hoping people will dream away with it, but most people are not. They are coming to reality, starting with a few. A fierce reality has struck them.

The carbon tax needs to be ceased immediately. Good God almighty, where does the Government think the people are finding the money? The Government must think they are millionaires with a load of money stuffed under their mattresses at home ready to throw out to the Government for pet projects around Dublin city. I am sorry, but it will not work that way. People are struggling. The Minister needs to accept some of these amendments tonight to show a clear understanding of the way people are suffering. If he does not, that is fine. We will keep pushing from this end. It took us maybe seven or eight months to get the Government to jump around the way it is doing this week. It is only now worried about the public, whereas countries such as Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands are already working on this and have put in place measures to protect their people.

I am bitterly disappointed. A €100 subsidy was a joke. Now the Government realises that. It has a tendency to make a lot of announcements and then, two or three days later, another announcement and another announcement on the same issue, as with the €1,000 to be given to the care workers, when it forgot the home-----

See this speech in context