Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

The cost-of-living crisis is burning away in communities throughout Ireland. It is having a material effect on the lives of so many in terms of nutrition and mental health. It is even resulting in people, especially older people, being forced to go to hospital because they do not have proper food or heating. It has been a particularly difficult experience in rural and regional Ireland, where many people feel that they are being attacked by a Dublin-centric Government. Farmers have been particularly hard hit by the cost-of-living increases. The price of the fuel on which they depend for work, transport and heating has gone through the roof in recent times. Many people increasingly believe this is a south Dublin-centric Government. There are ten counties, most of them in Connacht and elsewhere in the west, that do not have a Minister, yet all four Deputies representing a constituency in south Dublin are Ministers. The cost for the family shop is now €1,000 higher than it was last year - an incredible inflation rate of 16.3%. We forecast that increase. We said that if the Government did not get to grips with the inflation being experienced by farmers, particularly in the context of fertiliser, that inflation rate would transmit to inflation in the cost of food on supermarket shelves within six months to a year, and that is what has happened.

What has frustrated me in the past year is that the Government has made money out of the cost-of-living crisis in terms of fuel taxes. A reply we received several weeks ago to a parliamentary question stated that the Government is taking in more in VAT on fuel and energy than it did in the previous four years. It is incredible that in a cost-of-living crisis the Government is taking more out of people's pockets on fuel than it did previously. For example, the yield from VAT on electricity reached record heights of €381 million, an increase of 40% in the space of a year. The yield on petrol is €299 million while VAT on diesel resulted in €382 million and solid fuel in €61 million. On average, the VAT take on fuel increased by nearly 30% in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis under Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. In fact, the total cost of the energy credit is less than the increased amount of taxes achieved by the Government and the increased profits at Electric Ireland. The Government has taken more money out of pockets during this cost-of-living crisis. It is incredible. Of course, it also increased the carbon tax.

In addition, the wholesale prices of gas and electricity have collapsed yet the Government has not moved on a proper windfall tax. Surely this Bill should have been the location for a proper windfall tax. The Government, however, is saying that it will happen in a number of weeks. The motto of this Government should be mañana, on the horizon, some time in the future.

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