Dáil debates

Tuesday, 28 June 2022

Emergency Budget: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]

 

9:00 pm

Photo of Michael CollinsMichael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Rural Independent Group fully supports the motion. We were the first political grouping in the Dáil to call on the Government to hold an emergency mini budget, when we moved a Private Members' motion on 23 February 2022. We also moved a Private Members' motion in April calling on the Government to axe the carbon tax, which would have had the impact of putting about €8,000 directly in every person's pocket between now and 2030. Last month we called on the Minister for Finance to reduce to zero all fuel and energy taxes until the end of 2022. Perhaps the worst aspect of the Government’s crippling carbon tax, which it hiked again on 1 May, is that it was specifically designed by Fianna Fáil and the Green Party the last time they shared power together to make petrol, diesel, and all available energy products much more expensive. We are seeing the biting impacts of this now.

The Government voted down our proposal in February, despite the fact the motion called on the Government to recognise the cost-of-living crisis as a national emergency. If the Government had listened back then, the people would not be suffering the crippling financial pain we are all experiencing today. We sought the introduction of a comprehensive and robust package of measures intended to support those less well-off and impacted sectors through allocating financial aid and slashing energy consumption taxes. The Government does not have a monopoly on good ideas and its members must urgently remove their heads from the sand dunes and re-enter the real world. An emergency or mini-budget to mitigate and address the spiralling cost-of-living crisis on multiple fronts is long overdue.

I presume the Minister has the same in his constituency although it is not as rural as mine. Fishers and farmers are coming to me in desperate situations. Fishers have parked their boats by the pier because of the cost of fuel. I said this to the Taoiseach today but he seems to speak a different language to me because he did not understand what I was speaking about. It is quite plain to hear. It is the same with the farmers. They are in a desperate situation. Farm contractors are speaking about €1 more for a litre of green diesel than what they paid last year. They are in a desperate situation and the Government will have to do something. If it does not, it will cripple the country and grind it to a halt. Common sense tells everybody this but it does not seem to focus the Government. Common sense no longer applies when it comes to the Government. It is slightly removed from reality. It will have to come back and understand the suffering people are going through.

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