Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

An rud is tábhachtaí, ar mo shon féin agus do gach éinne sa Teach seo, ná an fhírinne a thabhairt don tír go hiomlán agus a insint do mhuintir na tíre agus a bheith macánta leo. Is é sin a dheineas inné. It should not be astonishing, as he has said, to tell the truth. What I said yesterday was telling the truth about a new era of an increase in pricing around fossil fuels. The reason for that is that this week we will mark the grim milestone of 100 days since Russia's unjustified, illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine. That invasion has brought untold misery, death and human suffering. Almost 6 million Ukrainian people, half of them children, have been put on the road, have had to flee their country, and forced to try to find sanctuary where they can get it, equivalent to the entire population of this country. That invasion has brought that suffering but it also has brought extraordinary economic cost and disruption with it. The Deputy did not refer to it at all in his contribution, which was wrong of him because we need to be honest with people. This war is having a terrible impact on the world, primarily in terms of the deaths of so many Ukrainians and the terrible trauma they are experiencing, but also bringing about huge economic cost and disruption, triggering a massive spike in the cost of energy, and with a huge increase in the cost of a vast range of other materials, affecting food and agriculture in terms of fertiliser and so on, which all input into our society and economic system, and also, most devastating of all, it is causing and will continue to cause a major food security crisis. Yesterday the European Union spoke to the President of the African Union, which is extremely concerned about the impacts of this war on famine or the prospects of creating a really significant famine. The Russian ambassador and the Russian President would have us all believe that this is the fault of western governments, and we need to be careful that we do not fall into the Putin trap of laying all the blame domestically because he wants western states to buckle under the pressure that he deliberately and premeditatedly created. Putin wanted to create an energy crisis, he wants to create a food crisis and he wanted to create a migration crisis, all part of the one immoral and unjustifiable war. That is why we have very significant manifestation of that in the form of high energy prices for our people, putting many people under pressure. I do not dispute that; people are under a lot of pressure because of this and because of the deliberate policies of the Putin regime. To be fair to the Irish people, they have responded magnificently in how they have brought in and worked, through communities and volunteerism, with Ukrainians across the country.

The Deputy said earlier that the Government has been slow, tardy. It has not, actually. It has allocated since last October €2.5 billion to cost of living issues in terms of cutting taxes and increasing welfare rates. We have increased the fuel allowance rate, for example, by about 55%, a €404 increase from 2021 to 2022. We have reduced excise duty on petrol, diesel and green diesel, about €9 and €12 each time people fill their tank-----

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