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

I am glad to get the opportunity to speak. I thank Sinn Féin for this motion to give us the opportunity to talk about these very important matters. Everyone understands the rise in the cost of living is caused by the cost of fuel. The men and women on the road are suffering, whether it is driving a car or a lorry, and the farmers driving tractors and jeeps are all suffering because of the extra cost of fuel. Whatever about the budget, and you can put whatever name you like on it, I am calling on the Minister to help these people. The Government is taking in way more tax now than it was at the time of the budget last year, when fuel was around €1.20 per litre for diesel or petrol. It is nearly double that now, so the Government has nearly doubled the tax take. I ask the Government to give it back to the people on the road who are suffering. In a way, the Government will ensure costs for everything else are kept down rather than rising. People just cannot keep going. The wheels will grind to a halt. Whether it is the lorry and tractor men, men and women going to work or mothers taking their children to school, and we do not have school transport in every part of our rural areas, they are all suffering and they are the most entitled to get the money back. They are the people who are paying the extra tax and suffering the most. They are people with a wheel, whatever type of a vehicle it is, and they are suffering.

I ask the Minister and his Government to give attention to those people today, not in October. Many of them will be gone under come October. That is the truth. The Minister has heard Deputy Michael Collins speak about the fishermen. It is the very same with lorry and tractor men and the people trying to continue to go to work. Those are the people who are suffering. The Government has extra tax and wriggle room. Please give it back to them - some of them - and do not be keeping it for bankrolling some other airy-fairy idea by the Green Party.

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