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

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important topic. Families and workers in Kerry and all over Ireland are suffering because of the increasing cost of fuel. Many cannot carry on and will not survive. If diesel prices rise further, work will stop and wheels will grind to a halt.

The Government did not recognise it two weeks ago but it needs to publish a mini-budget to deal with the problems. The Government cannot increase the carbon tax any further. The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, can manage with a bicycle here in Dublin and has several public transport options in the form of trains, buses, the DART and the Luas, but the story is totally different for someone in Gneeveguilla, Scartaglin, Cordal, Castleisland, Brosna or Knocknagoshel who needs to go to work in Munster Joinery or Cadbury in Rathmore, Liebherr in Killarney or Walsh Colour Print. That person needs a car – there is no other option. He or she has to travel several miles to go to work. Parents who have to take their children to school need cars. They have no other choice. When people live in outlying places like Glencar, Killorglin, Cahersiveen and Kilgarvan, they cannot put two or three children up on the bar of a bike together and bring them to school.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government are content to let the people of rural Ireland suffer all of these extra living costs in order to keep the Green Party on side. Indeed, when we were making our case at the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine to Mr. Fabien Santini from the EU about the savage increase in fertiliser costs, a Green Party Deputy said that he was happy because it would help farmers to go organic and spread less fertiliser. Being city based, he believes that saying this will not hurt him electorally, but if the cost of food production increases, the cost to the consumer increases as well. How do Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael backbenchers content themselves with utterances like that?

Farmers are terrified and many do not know how or if they will be able to continue. The cost of agri-diesel has increased from 38 cent to more than €1 since this time last year. Feed costs have doubled and fertiliser costs have trebled. Urea fertiliser cost €330 per tonne last July. It now costs €940 and is difficult to get. When we pressed the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, on the cost of fertiliser, she told us that the Government had written a letter to someone. God almighty, but is that all it can do? What about dropping the anti-dumping tariff of €50? Would the Government ever consider giving farmers a subsidy of €100 per tonne towards the savage cost of fertiliser? This would help to keep the cost of food down for housewives.

Commercial lorry owners in the transport industry are at breaking point. They were outside the gates of Leinster House months ago and made their case in an ordinary and respectful manner. I asked the Taoiseach to forgo the extra VAT and excise duties that the Government was accruing from the increased fuel costs and give the sector a chance but he did not respond and the Government has done nothing. That was three or four months ago. The Government took in an extra €3 billion in VAT returns in 2021 compared with 2020. That was €1 billion more than its own projections. God almighty, but would it give some bit of that money back to people to let them continue operating? Truck owners face several other cost increases for tyres, batteries, AdBlue and many other wearing components. Their prices have doubled. To top it all, truck owners cannot get parts owing to a fierce delay because of Brexit.

It is a scandal in God's eyes that people on illness benefit, jobseeker's benefit, maternity benefit, disabled benefit, enhanced illness benefit or occupational injuries benefit do not qualify for the fuel allowance. A pensioner living with a cancer patient who is in receipt of illness benefit will not qualify for the fuel allowance. Even though that person has paid the contributions entitling him or her to get the benefit, he or she cannot get the fuel allowance.

I have raised this before and the Government has done nothing about it. These are vulnerable people, many of whom are sick and in a bad way. The Government is talking about what it has done. It has done nothing for these classes of people. Gas prices went up by 10% again yesterday and the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, made a submission against Shannon LNG, where we would perhaps have a hope of getting gas in from America, which wants to sell it to us, because soon we will not be able to get it from the Russians.

Elderly people need heat in their homes to survive more so than younger people. They will perish in their homes if the Government does not act to help them. This mini-budget should reverse the decision to increase the carbon tax in budget 2022 and beyond until the full impact of the energy crisis is fully understood and a cost-benefit analysis is undertaken by whatever parliamentary means necessary, including new legislation if required.

The mini-budget must reduce the excise duty on all motor fuel by at least 50% until the energy crisis abates, a proper and common-sense plan for rural public transport alternatives is put in place in every rural community and the purchase price point of electric cars is affordable to the ordinary motorist. The Government should not be trying to force people away from diesel or petrol cars until it has a reasonable and practical alternative, which the electric car is not at present. It must give over its codding. It knows it is wrong in that regard. People will adapt and change if it is practical.

The mini-budget must reduce the excise duty on petrol, which is currently 62.77 cent per litre, and on diesel, which is 51.9 cent per litre, by at least 50% from now until the end of 2022. This alone would save approximately €18 on a €100 fill of petrol or diesel for the regular motorist. The mini-budget must reduce VAT on all motor fuels, electricity and home heating oil to below 5% until the end of 2022.

I appeal to the Minister to do this. Otherwise, people cannot go on; they cannot continue indefinitely. As has been said in this Chamber, the price will shortly be more than €2 per litre. The Government will have to do something. It is not fair to continue insisting on a carbon tax just to please the Green Party and keep it onside. Government Deputies should think of the people who elected them in rural Ireland and the people who always voted for them. Those people are changing their minds and nothing will stop them from doing so.

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