Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)

Last month, a report by the International Energy Agency found that energy companies are buying electricity at a third of the price they are selling it at. We have hard-pressed working people and families being absolutely fleeced by big energy companies. The report confirms that sky-high energy prices are not the result of unpredictable global market shocks. Quite simply, they are being set by price-gouging energy companies lining the pockets of their shareholders at the expense of ordinary people.

We need to give people a break and the Minister could give people a break. He could end the rip-off, stand up to these energy companies and deliver affordable energy. What we have instead is a Government that has chosen to make it worse. This Government has actually gone out of its way to make life more difficult and to hike the cost of energy and transport by increasing the carbon tax. This is having a massive impact on people in the west of Ireland, many of whom are already struggling to make ends meet. In my clinics, people come into me really concerned about being able to heat their homes. They are just saying they can no longer afford the bills they have to pay. A lot of people in the west of Ireland, as the Minister knows, rely on oil for heating. They are now going to have to fork out €1,000 to fill up a tank of oil. Some €220 of that is carbon tax. These people are being punished for something that is completely and utterly out of their hands. Thousands of rural households have no other choice but to use oil to heat their homes. They are being forced to live in freezing cold homes this winter because of this Government.

Climate action cannot come at the cost of pushing working people into poverty. It needs to be a just transition. The Minister's Government's carbon taxes are an unjust, failed and technocratic approach to environmental policy that is deepening social and economic inequality. It needs to be scrapped. Working people and families are in desperate need of support to pay their energy bills. They need the Minister to reverse his cruel decision to scrap energy credits. They need him to scrap the carbon tax and end the energy rip-off by standing up to the big energy companies. Tá an oiread sin daoine in iarthar na hÉireann nach bhfuil in ann íoc as a gcuid billí ná an ola atá acu agus tá an cáin charbóin ag cur leis an mbrú atá orthu. Is cinneadh é sin atá déanta ag an Rialtas. Is mór an náire é.

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