Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am afraid it is just not enough. Heating and energy bills are set to increase by approximately €800. For many people, it will be more than that if their homes are badly insulated. In most cases, they have little control over that if they are tenants, public or private, or do not have the money to retrofit their homes. Who will make up the gap between the very small measures, such as social welfare increases, including an increase to the fuel allowance for those who get it, or the €200 energy credit and the cost-of-living increase? When it is added up, it is still well short of the increase of just in the price of heating and energy, never mind how the cost of rent is rocketing and food prices and so on are going up. It is not enough. Does the Minister consider the fact - because he should - that the same people who are being crucified by these costs are paying €494 million in carbon tax, which the Government plans to increase, €481 million in VAT and €263 million in public service obligation levies? They are being crucified by taxes that he has the power to reduce. Does he not think that, given the unprecedented crisis we are facing, he needs to do a hell of a lot more?

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