Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too thank Deputy Kerrane and Sinn Féin for bringing this very important motion before the House. The public are facing unprecedentedly hard times, with inflation at a record high at 8.2% in this month of May. We would have to go back to 1983 to find similar inflation figures here previously. If the Government were seriously to consider reducing the taxes that have been put on diesel and petrol, we could reduce the cost of fuel by 65%. Doing that is within the gift and the power of the Government and it would be meaningful and real and would have a major and immediate effect.

In the context of this debate on the price of food, I have been the owner of a small shop for many years and I know at first hand the effect the increases are having. We are living in a country where nothing can be distributed or taken around. Nothing falls out of the sky for us; it all has to go by road. Obviously, there has been a massive increase in the costs of transportation, whether that is the fuel itself or the running costs of lorries and vans. Even for people who deliver newspapers every day, there is a cost to keep tyres and a vehicle maintained and on the road. It is a never-ending cycle of increases and at the end of the day it is the consumer who pays for everything.

The Taoiseach admitted earlier that he was worried and concerned. If he is so bloody well concerned, why does he come into the House and put more taxes, in the guise of carbon taxes, onto the hard-pressed public? Now is not a time to be putting on carbon taxes and other additional taxes. It is a time to reduce, as a temporary measure, the taxes we have in place to ensure people will be able to afford to live, feed their families and keep bread on the table. We definitely have to do something, yet the Government seems to be hell-bent on nailing everybody to the cross. It has done nothing about the increase in energy costs. People's fuel bills have rocketed to unprecedented figures and there are also the issues faced by people running small businesses. I was contacted the other day by the owner of a chip shop whose monthly bill now stands at between €8,000 and €9,000, which is unsustainable.

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