Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I probably will not be quite as eloquent as other speakers.

We are in an incredibly difficult situation. All Members accept the difficulties that led to the supports being introduced. We all know that none of us had any part to play in the creation of the pandemic. Rather, it was foisted upon us and a determination was made that we needed to protect the people and, beyond that, businesses and families, so supports were introduced. All Members welcome the €1,000 special recognition payment. I know there are issues relating to those working in section 38 and section 39 organisations, as well as the wider issue of family carers once again feeling hard done by. There are issues in respect of ratio payments and all the rest of it that do need to be considered. On the whole, however, it is something that should have happened earlier. We are very glad to see it happen now. However, like I said, we made a determination in respect of carrying out these supports.

Once again, we are in a situation that is not of our making. There were already conditions of inflation due to the outworkings of Covid and Brexit but, beyond that, we have had to deal with the absolutely criminal and murderous invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin. Once again, support and solidarity has to be shown to the Ukrainian people but, in addition, we have to consider what mitigations can be introduced for our own people in the present circumstances. Plenty of Deputies have laid out the human situation of people who cannot afford to fill their home heating oil or make necessary journeys to hospitals or elsewhere. We have all seen how prices have shot up. Sinn Féin welcomes the fact that there are some mitigations from the Government but more will be needed.

Pegging petrol prices at €1.75 per litre is not necessarily exactly where people want them to be but it is a point of mitigation and we need to ensure that happens across the board. We recognise there has been a significant increase in the tax take and that has to be taken into account when decisions are being made. I call on the Government to consider that to ensure there is a pegging system and some sort of baseline that people will know they will pay at the pump.

I get that there are wider issues that need to be considered and that, unfortunately, we are still far more wedded to fossil fuels, and even, in some cases, to Russian fossil fuels, than we would like to be. We are not as far on as we would like to be when it comes to wind energy. There is an onus on us to deal with that. We also have to deal with the specific issue of home heating oil and the pressure in that regard.

In the past week, I raised the issue of the district heating system at Carlinn Hall, Dundalk. Unfortunately, it is a very inefficient heating system. It was initially meant to run on biofuels but ended up, as a result of unintended consequences, being heated by gas, and it loses 50% of that gas. Basically, 100 units of gas give 50 units of heat to the house. The problem is that Frontline Energy, the company that buys from Energia, is charged as a commercial customer. I have raised this issue previously. I brought it to the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications. It is a specific issue that will need to be dealt with. There are several of that type of district heating systems and they work in certain circumstances, such as when they use the likes of what is being proposed for Poolbeg, that is, where there is basically a heat dump that can be used rather than wasted. Obviously, that makes sense from an environmental point of view but we need to ensure there are no more situations such as that in Carlinn Hall. We will need to find solutions, particularly for people in the likes of Carlinn Hall. That will involve some sort of protection for domestic users.

It is straightforward. I will not take up any more time. We brought in the protections relating to Covid because they were needed. We are now in a situation that is not of the making of the Government or the Opposition, but we do need to protect our people. We need to mitigate where we can. I accept some of this needs to be done at European level. There is an onus on the State to make sure our voice is heard there, but we also need to do exactly what we can and there is still an opportunity to do that tonight.

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