Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the motion but unfortunately the carbon tax has been ignored. Parties such as Sinn Féin and others are voting to support it. It results in a direct cost on our goods. The Government policy of consistently attacking productive agriculture to keep the Green Party on side means a major weakness in our food policy. It is as simple as that. The Government will not tackle the conglomerates, oil companies or the ESB, with their massive profits. What is the problem? Is the Government in hock to these people? Did it promise them the sun, moon and stars? Do they own the Government? Is the Government so in their pockets that it will not tackle them? We have for ages been talking about decoupling oil from wind energy. We did that kicking and screaming and were the last in Europe to do it. We have the highest prices in Europe. The Taoiseach today lamented that our prices are 40% higher than those in some other countries but he also said that wages were 40% higher in Ireland. I do not know where he is getting those figures. Does he forget that the Government voted two weeks ago to increase the excise duty and VAT on petrol and diesel again? The increases are to be next June, August and October. The price will be up 23 cent. Who is codding whom? The genie is out of the bottle here and the public can see it.

I beg the Government to do something for the hard-pressed, struggling people. The figures that have been quoted, which are available for everyone to see, indicate there are hundreds of thousands of people in fuel poverty. Hundreds of thousands who have always paid their way have electricity and gas bill overruns, yet the Government allows the companies to charge extortionate rates and rubs its hands and fiddles while Rome burns. It will be fiddling and fiddling until it will be fiddled. It will play itself a tune, the lonesome lament. It will be well out of here and gone.

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