Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ar an chéad dul síos I wish to give notice that I intend to move amendment No. 1 at a later stage.

This is utter folly. The last speaker and several other Government speakers turned up. Some of them ran to the hills to hide and did not even take their slots. Here we are again betraying the Irish people. Since last October, the EU Commission has been telling member states that they could do anything possible to bring down the cost of excise, and the list of countries that have done it includes Spain, Hungary, Romania and Poland. Who is codding who here? The Minister is codding nobody. This is not a citizens' assembly that meets on Saturday and Sunday. This is the Parliament to which the Minister has been elected to be truthful and to serve the people we were elected to serve, not to do a con job. I hate using the word "screw", but that is what we are doing. We are killing people. They cannot buy heating oil. They get a paltry amount for petrol and road diesel, 2 cent for the other diesel and nothing for heating oil. It is shocking. The Minister knows. He cannot look me in the face and admit it. He is hiding. He is acting for the globalists and for the powerful leaders in Europe. He has abdicated his responsibility to the people of Ireland who he is elected to serve.

I know it is a cobbled-together Government, but the Taoiseach had the audacity this morning to lecture us. He was like a múinteoir scoile. All he was missing was the bata, the stick. It was a lecture, because he could not answer anybody's questions. I asked the Minister tonight if he gets more tax from fuel as the price goes up. He did not answer me because he knows the answer.

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