Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cé go bhfuil sé soiléir dúinn uilig faoin am seo go bhfuil géarchéim mhillteanach ann maidir le costais mhaireachtála, níl clue ag an Rialtas cé chomh holc agus atá rudaí. Tá sé ag déanamh neamhaird ar theaghlaigh agus ar oibrí atá ag streachailt amuigh ansin. Ní hamháin sin, leis an fhírinne a insint tá sé ag déanamh rudaí níos measa. Tá costais fuinnimh agus teasa ag ardú leo agus tá an Rialtas ag cur pionóis orthu siúd atá ag fulaingt le cáin charbóin agus níl ciall ar bith leis seo. Workers and families face a cost of living crisis. Rising prices are reducing the living standard for low and middle income households and many families are being forced to make choices they simply should not be making. Those choices include cutting the amount of food they buy, whether to turn on the heat or for some it is even both of those.

Figures released by the Central Statistics Office today show that prices have increased by 5% in the last year and as I have repeatedly said to the Minister and other Ministers, inflation does not affect everybody equally. Lower and middle income households spend more of their money heating and lighting their homes than those on the top do. The measures the Government came forward with last week abjectly failed to meet the needs of those many families. For example, the Government handed out the same level of support to millionaires as it did to low and middle income households through the electricity credit. It will spend €12 million to give financial support to over 60,000 holiday homes. This makes no sense. Sinn Féin proposed a package of measures that would have been more focused and that would have offered greater support to those in low and middle income households. It would have done so through, for example, a direct cost of living cash payment, as has been done elsewhere. However, the Government did not listen and it simply would not go there.

Today’s figures show that electricity has gone up by 22% in the past year. The price of gas has gone up by 28% and, staggeringly, the price of home heating oil has gone up by over 50% in the past year and it is continuing to rise. This is the method one third of the population uses to heat their homes and two thirds of the population in the Border region of Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim and Louth use home heating oil to keep themselves warm at night. Despite soaring energy prices, this Government is determined to increase those prices further with a hike in the carbon tax coming into effect on 1 May. The Government needs to get a grip on this and come to planet Earth and to where people really are. So many people are struggling, every euro counts and every single bit makes a difference. Pushing ahead with the carbon tax is wrong, it lacks common sense and it should not go ahead.

The measures announced by the Government last week were criticised, not just by Sinn Féin and the Opposition but by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the lone parent organisation One Family Ireland, Social Justice Ireland and many more. More importantly, they were criticised by ordinary people who know what it feels like to have a Government that is ignoring them and does not get where they are at. All of those comments were valid. At the same time we have the bizarre comments of the Taoiseach warning that increasing the disposable income of struggling families risks making matters worse. Could the Government be more out of touch? The Tánaiste is calling on the ESB to act in a way that many recognise will damage our economy and threaten jobs. The Government needs to wake up, get real and understand what is happening out there to ordinary workers and families. Will the Government cancel the planned hike in the carbon tax which is due in May and will it introduce targeted measures to support workers and families to deal with the cost of living increases?

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