Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Nobody is disputing the international context for these soaring prices. I hope nobody is disputing, either, that householders, families, workers, hauliers and those providing school transport are now at their wits' end.

Their crisis is now. It is in the immediacy of now. It is a question of how they get to work, get about and heat their home, today, tomorrow and next week. I am well aware that the European Commission is bringing forward proposals and we certainly look forward to seeing them, but we would regard them as being by way of additionality to what the Government in Dublin needs to do now.

I have made a very concrete ask of the Taoiseach. I ask again that a financial resolution be brought before the Dáil this week, either tonight or tomorrow night, that will have the effect of reducing excise on petrol and diesel and a 25 cent per litre reduction at the petrol pumps immediately for consumers, and that this resolution would equally have the effect of removing excise entirely on home heating oil to take some of the sting out of that soaring cost. I am asking the Taoiseach to do this now. Speed is of the essence because people are suffering and struggling now.

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