Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)

Cuirim céad míle fáilte roimh na cuairteoirí atá anseo inniu.

Before I begin, I take this opportunity to wish the female garda taken to hospital last night a speedy recovery from her injuries.

Struggling households were dealt two body blows on Monday. The first blow was that food inflation has reached its highest level in nearly two years. People are being ripped off when they go to the supermarket and it is clear as day to them that they are being ripped off. The second blow was the big hike in electricity prices for hundreds of thousands of SSE Airtricity customers, adding hundreds of euro to their bills. The Taoiseach was asked yesterday how bad things actually have to get before the Government does something. The Government needs to stand up to these companies and protect people from this greedy profiteering. When the Taoiseach responded to Deputy Mary-Lou McDonald, he said that the Government is engaging with these companies. If he is referring to the meeting that Darragh O'Brien had with energy companies on 26 September, then the top brass must have left confident that it is business as usual for them and open season. Since the Minister's big meeting, Energia, Bord Gáis, Pinergy and SSE Airtricity all jacked up their energy prices. This is reminiscent of May 2023 when Fine Gael Minister of State, Deputy Neale Richmond, gave the big supermarket chains six weeks to get their prices down. Today, those prices are absolutely through the roof.

While prices rise and companies continue to gouge households, the budget has left working people worse off. The Government refused to deliver a cost-of-living package, cancelled energy credits, removed double child benefit payment and decided not to give ordinary workers a break in their income tax. All of its decisions are piling more pressure on people who are already hard pressed. Surely the Taoiseach meets ordinary working people who are struggling. He must hear their stories of worry and stress, so why does he not do something about it? At one of my clinics last weekend, I met two teachers. They have two children in college. They have to pay for their dates and their fees. Their third child is due to start college next September. They have had to ask him to take a year out when he finishes the leaving certificate because they simply cannot afford to send him to college. Imagine that. We now have a situation whereby two teachers are so hammered by a cost-of-living crisis that is completely out of control that they have had to ask their child to look towards their future and not go to college when he should be doing so. It is bill after bill, and they simply cannot take it any more.

This couple are not alone, and the Taoiseach knows that. Working people are drowning in a wave of sky-high bills. They see absolutely no end in sight. There will be real tension when people's electricity bills land. The Government pushed back against proposals to get energy costs down. It ignored a major report which shows that companies are not passing on the drop in wholesale prices to Irish households. It acts as if this is not even happening. It needs to get off the bench and needs to start fighting the corner for ordinary households, because they simply cannot take it anymore. The Government needs to stop protecting these big companies and give regulators the powers they need to end the price gouging and stop this rip-off.

Feiceann daoine nach bhfuil aon deireadh ag teacht ar an ngéarchéim sa chostas maireachtála. Tá Fianna Fáil agus Fine Gael breá sásta seasamh siar agus ligin do na comhlachtaí móra seo leas a bhaint as daoine. Caithfidh an Rialtas a phost a dhéanamh agus céimeanna a thógáil chun cuidiú is cosaint a thabhairt do theaghlaigh.

The Government refused to include a cost-of-living package in the budget. Now it is refusing to include meaningful measures in the Finance Bill to help workers and families cope with runaway prices. My question is simple. Is this it? Is this all the Government has for families? Is it just going to leave these households on their own? Will the Government do anything to tackle runaway prices as people face a rip-off winter that will push them even further back?

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