Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Does the Minister have any idea of the number of businesses around the country that were awaiting the details of this Finance Bill today? My God, were they surprised. A great many of them will not qualify for the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS, as Revenue will need to see an increase of 40% or more in electricity or gas bills compared with bills for this time last year. Deputy Micheál Martin has, in the past, accused us of not understanding the consequences of the war between Russia and Ukraine but we seem to understand a lot more than the Government. The Finance Bill is of the Government's own making and, through the restrictions it has placed on this scheme it introduced in the budget, it has missed an opportunity to help businesses around the country. These restrictions will prevent many businesses from availing of the TBESS. Does the Minister know why? It is because, six or seven months ago, many businesses decided to take the Government's advice and try to save on energy. What did they do? They borrowed money to put in solar panels to reduce their energy costs. They bought generators to reduce their energy costs and now find out that, after making all of these investments, they do not qualify for this scheme. Many of these businesses have seen increases in energy costs of 25% and 35% but will not get any financial reward from the scheme.

I spoke to a quarry owner today. The U-turn the Government has done on the block levy is amazing. I myself highlighted to Government the lunacy of bringing in a concrete levy in the first place because it was targeting every person in the country building a house, renovating one, doing up a garden or replacing a driveway. The Government did not think it through and has now had to do a U-turn. Its backbenchers finally found a small bit of backbone and threatened it so it did a U-turn, although it only reduced the levy to 5% and delayed it until September of next year. If that goes ahead, Government backbenchers will come under far more pressure than they did this year.

What is the crux of this? How does the Government help people in an energy crisis? The price of fuel goes up and this Government's taxation system takes 50% on diesel and almost the same percentage on petrol. For every euro spent at the fuel pump, the Government takes 50%. What is used to manufacture food in this country? Fossil fuel-powered vehicles. Tractors set the seeds and bring in the silage to feed the cattle whose milk is then brought to the creamery by fossil fuel-powered trucks. Food is brought to your premises for you to eat by fossil fuel-powered vehicles. The Government levies taxes totalling 50% on these fuels. How many billions of euro has it taken in tax? Today, the Minister has said that the Government has managed to put together an €11 billion package for the country and did not have to borrow a cent, but that is because it robbed that money off the country in the first place. It robbed it off the squeezed middle. It robbed the entrepreneurs of this country who are trying to stay in business. When the Minister sees sorrow on the faces of children and people who can barely put food on the table this Christmas, I hope he will know that he was the cause of a lot of it. All he does is introduce tax after tax. If he is not taxing fuel, he is putting 23% on everything else and his Government is backing him. Shame on them.

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