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

All across the country, SME owners are worried and struggling as we head into the winter due to rising costs, higher interest rates and waning consumer confidence. While the Government cites the war in Ukraine as the rationale for this Bill, many other factors are also to blame. The Government's ongoing dysfunctional energy policies, for example, mean Irish consumers are paying much higher prices than almost any other European citizens for petrol, diesel, home heating oil and electricity. Yes, the war on Ukraine is driving up energy and commodity prices and making it harder to get certain materials, but it is deeply cynical for the Government to hide behind the war when its own policies are causing the most pain for Irish consumers.

The taxes being charged on energy in Ireland are higher than in any other EU country. Our carbon taxes are among the highest anywhere in the world. These factors are causing our energy prices to soar. Another factor is that the Government will not provide security of domestic energy supply by opening up drilling for new oil and gas supplies off our coast. The Ukraine enterprise crisis scheme and other measures will, we hope, help businesses competing internationally and suffering the broader effects of skyrocketing energy costs. However, they will do absolutely nothing to tackle the underlying causes of this crisis.

The new credit guarantee scheme is expected to open before the end of the year, providing low-cost, unsecured working capital to SMEs and primary producers. The Government says it is designed to help businesses to spread increased input costs and limit the disruption to supply chains. However, while the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and others in government continue to give red-carpet treatment to the head of the European Central Bank, ECB, ordinary people are being hit hard by the ECB rate hikes, which will do more damage than intended and will almost certainly trigger deep recessions in many EU countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Ireland. Worse still, they will see thousands of Irish mortgage holders lose their homes as they will not be able to meet the rising monthly loan repayments.

On paper, the two-tier Irish economy will keep growing, thanks to the robust exports from the multinationals based here and buoyant corporate tax receipts. However, the domestic economy, which impacts people in every community, will struggle gravely. That is what I have been told in the past few months when I met with publicans, restaurant and café owners, hoteliers, family owners of supermarkets, farmers and fishermen. They are in a crisis. The Government has been throwing €200 here and there at householders but the bottom line is the bills these businesses face are astronomical. A payment of €200 will do nothing for them. The few quid they are getting is not enough.

Many business owners are worried. I met with hoteliers recently in Clonakilty who told me some of them, and their family members, would have to work for free next year. The owners of family-run hotels will not take any money for themselves. At the same time, the Government is saying it will leave the VAT rate at 9% for now but might increase it to 13.5% in February. There must be clarity on that straight away, maybe even tonight. Surely the Government understands the pressure on some of these hotel owners. They are not all taking in refugees. These are hotels that rely on a summer trade to do their business. It is hard to believe but the owners and their families will have to work for free next year if the situation continues as it is.

If the VAT rate goes from 9% to 13.5%, it will have devastating consequences for many of these hotel owners. The same is true for shop owners. The problem for these businesses is that their costs are rocketing, with electricity bills of €30,000 or €40,000 a month. That increase has to go onto the price of the drum of milk, the loaf of bread and the box of eggs. It has to go onto the shelf because the owners cannot take the hit. Alternatively, they will have to reduce the number of staff on the floor, which will be another blow to people.

The crux of the whole issue is that the Government was caught napping. Not just this Government but successive Governments were asleep at the wheel. We should have had our own energy supply and our own fuel. A lot of speakers in this House waffle on with the spin that we can do without fuel. We cannot do without it. How do people get to this Chamber every day? Some 99.9% of us drive here. That is the way it is at the moment and there is no alternative. If there was an alternative, I would be the first person jumping up and down to support it. The alternative is not there.

There are Deputies who continue to say they are delighted the Kinsale Head gas and oil field is going out of operation and that we do not need to open an oil field in Barryroe. They are all in cloud cuckoo land. The best experts in the world say wind energy will not take the place of any of these fuels until 2035 or 2040. Some of the same Deputies tried to give that old spin in the audiovisual room more than a week ago when we had experts in to discuss the issue. Those Deputies were all quietened with the click of a finger because they were given true and honest answers. Many of them do not want to hear those answers but they are the facts.

There are proposals for liquefied natural gas, LNG, floating gas terminals. LNG is a very clean fuel that could perhaps be put through the pipes in Kinsale, provided the Government does not fill them with concrete, as it is strongly rumoured to be proposing to do. That will have to be watched carefully. There is a company in this country that has bought 250,000 tonnes of Colombian coal. That coal is brought into the country from Colombia but we cannot produce anything ourselves. We are beginning to look like a farcical nation.

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