Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The reality for people living in the west and north west is that at least two thirds of the homes are heated with home heating oil. The figure is probably higher in County Donegal. Someone looking to fill a tank with 1,000 l of oil would have paid about €600 just over a year ago. Today, that person will pay more than double that. The tank must be filled a number of times every year. When households are already struggling to get by I do not need to explain the impact this is having on families in the rural west and north west. I can speak with absolute clarity about what is happening in Donegal.

What has the Government done to assist with that huge burden? Absolutely nothing. We asked it to reduce excise duty on home heating oil but it would not do it. The Government is now insisting on increasing the carbon tax in the next week. That is the context and there is anger in rural Ireland. There has been a significant increase in the price of coal, on which nothing has been done for working families. The final straw has been the issue of turf. This affects 4% of homes, which is a small number. The people affected are often older and living in isolated areas and do not have much money. Turf is the one source of fuel that has not significantly increased in cost, yet now is the time the Government has chosen to go after them. This is after doing nothing for rural families when it came to increases in the prices of home heating oil and, to a lesser albeit significant extent, coal.

This is how people heat their homes. The Government has done nothing to give people proper financial assistance to change or engage in retrofitting. There has been nothing in the years since the carbon tax was introduced. The carbon tax was supposed to penalise people who have not changed direction. How can people change direction when they cannot afford to and the infrastructure to do so is not there? Every time, people are given the stick and never the carrot in order to achieve objectives that people agree we need to move towards for the future. That is the problem. It is the cause of the anger in rural Ireland and in counties such as Donegal. The issue of turf, as I say, is the straw that is going to break the camel's back. The Government is going to have to back down on the issue. It will have to reconsider its approach with respect to home heating oil and the imposition of carbon tax increases at the worst possible time.

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