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

This is about the carbon tax and terrible plight of the people over the past number of years. It was brought about by a rosy idea to rob the people of rural Ireland and fill the pockets of those in the cities and bigger towns in order that they can get super transport services that we do not have in rural Ireland. Carbon tax is an absolute direct attack on the people of rural Ireland, and nothing else. The Minister has succeeded in getting a nice, healthy tax take and rosy-looking figures, but this has come at a very high cost to the ordinary mother and father. They are not going to forget that when election day comes. The people in rural constituencies are fuming. They tell me regularly that they cannot afford to put fuel in their cars because of carbon tax and the other taxes the Government has. The Government is engaged in a clean-out when it comes to fuel taxes.

It is the same with agricultural diesel. Farmers are being hit so severely this year due to increased fertiliser prices and other costs. It has been a disastrous year for agriculture. I met a silage contractor from a peninsula north of my home recently. The man was so distressed he was crying. He was in serious trouble. He did not know how he was going to get the money from the farmers because they did not have the money to pay him. His fuel bill was astronomical compared with other years. It is quite frightening. The Government has lost touch with that kind of situation. It has done a greedy tax take and a greedy carbon tax take and used the phrase "climate action" as an umbrella to cover everything. However, it does not cover all. If the price of agricultural diesel and the diesel used by the man driving the truck that brings the food to the shops is skyrocketing, this means that the price of food in the shops is also skyrocketing. It is back again to the mother and father who get up and work hard every day and try their level best to pay their way and pay their bills. They are finding it almost impossible to do so. Quite a number of them cannot do that at present.

I ask the Minister to give very serious consideration to the amendments we have put forward to the effect that carbon tax should be suspended for now. It will not be long before diesel costs €3 per litre at the pump. I would not like to be the politician who supports that and is knocking on the door to pat a person on their back as they look for their vote. As I said, it is a very difficult time for people in farming. One of our amendments was mainly about agricultural diesel. It is an extremely difficult time. There is a vote later on whereby the Government might give some bit of ease to farmers via our Impaired Farm Credit Bill 2022. Surely the Government will not vote against farmers and the people of rural Ireland again on that?

Unfortunately, we do not have a public transport service. In rural Ireland, people depend utterly on the car. They are being priced out of it. As I said earlier, climate change is the reason carbon tax has been brought in. At the same time, however, it did not stop Heads of Government flying 400 jets to Egypt last week for this climate discussion. The damage they did to the climate is frightening, but there was no worry about that. The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, took 55 officials with him. I do not know whether they were Green Party officials or people from Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, but it was farcical that so many individuals had to go out with one Minister, never mind the Taoiseach, and however many more went with him and the other Ministers who went to Egypt. We will be pressing the amendment.

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