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

Considering the crippling increases people are seeing in the prices of petrol, diesel and, more generally, fuel and energy, the proposed measures are fairly pathetic. Taxi drivers, about whom I have talked to the Minister many times and who got very little during Covid, are a good example of how we are just going out of the Covid frying pan into the Ukrainian war fire, with its associated impact on ordinary people who have suffered a lot and will now suffer again because of the rising cost of fuel. The measure will go nowhere near compensating a group of people who have suffered massively over the past two years and got very little help. It is utterly piddling. For the people who, prior to the Ukrainian crisis, were reeling from the increases in the prices of home heating oil, electricity and gas, which have spiralled, the proposed measure does nothing at all. The prices are continuing to spiral.

We were consistent at the beginning in saying what we think should be done. We were alone in saying it a few months ago but I note that others are now starting to agree with us. There are powers in the Consumer Protection Act 2007 that could be used. We have said this repeatedly and have been dismissed repeatedly, but maybe, finally, this idea will be listened to. The powers in the Act allow the Government, in abnormal circumstances, to declare an emergency in the supply of particular items and to control their maximum price. If this is not the abnormal circumstance envisaged in the legislation when it was drawn up in 2007, I really do not know what is. The abnormal circumstances were very much present even before the Ukrainian crisis because we saw multiple increases in the prices of gas, oil and electricity.

Now, however, we have got another crisis on top of a crisis as a result of what is happening with Putin's bloody invasion of Ukraine. The Minister's officials briefed me along with a couple of other Deputies a few days ago on the potential impact on inflation and they said something quite shocking. I said it in here a couple of times but it has not got much of a hearing. I was genuinely shocked when the officials said the projected inflation rate prior to the Ukrainian war, which according to the EU was 4.6% for the coming year, would have another 4% added to it. Therefore, the Minister's officials told us they project a near doubling of inflation. Inflation heading towards 9%, and maybe higher, is very serious. It is serious if it is even close to that. Against that background, the measure proposed is not enough and is pathetic. The Government should use the emergency powers available to it. It would be a matter of a stroke of a pen for it to introduce the maximum caps.

The Minister says the goods are internationally traded but what is rather embarrassing for him to mention is that we get most of our gas from the Corrib field and can produce huge amounts of electricity ourselves, including renewable electricity and hydroelectricity. Owing to our decision to allow these to be traded at market prices and to give them away, in many cases to private companies, we are crucified. We do not have to be because we could nationalise them. We could take them back, run them on a not-for-profit basis and not sell them off to private developers or private energy companies that are willing to profiteer and are profiteering. That could be done on a European level. The Minister is going on and on about how great the European Union is and how it is now co-ordinating its actions in respect of Covid and the Ukrainian war. It seems we can do anything at this stage on an all-Europe basis. Is there any chance that the Minister, when meeting his European partners at the Versailles meeting to discuss the impact of the Ukraine crisis, might suggest to them that they could cap the price of energy and the profits being made by BP, Shell and all the rest of them, which profits have gone through the roof in the past year, even before the Ukrainian crisis, and which will go up more as a result of it? Shell's profits have risen in one year from €4.8 billion to €19 billion. It is incredible. BP's profits last year were the highest in eight years. It is making an absolute fortune.

Another irony, which I do not have time to ponder in all this, concerns how much the military and militarisation, on which the Minister is now promoting further expenditure as a response to the crisis, contribute to the consumption of these scarce energy resources and the global warming that is choking the planet.

Yet, the Government wants us to increase it more. Brown University in the US produced a report recently, pointing out that the biggest single source of greenhouse emissions in the world is the Pentagon. It is also the biggest single consumer of oil and petrol. As is the case in Europe or any of the big military powers, that vast majority of that is used to move troops and military forces around the place. Perhaps the Government could discuss how cutting back on militarisation and expenditure on war, weapons and armies might actually reduce the unnecessary consumption of fuel, reduce the damage being done to our environment and even make the world a slightly more peaceful place where we are not faced with the possibility of war in Europe.

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