Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— there are 11 toll roads in operation across the State, 10 of which are on the national roads network with two of these being in full public ownership and eight roads across the State are tolled under Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) with the Minister for Transport holding responsibility for overall policy and funding in relation to the National Roads Programme;

— motor tax can either be paid in one less expensive lump sum or more costly instalments disproportionately impacting lower-income motorists; and

— annual increases in Carbon taxes raise the price of motor fuels, with the Minister for Finance holding overall responsibility for tax policy;

regrets that:

— despite a raging cost of living crisis, motorists are faced with price hikes at every turn, particularly those living in rural areas, who are forced to use a private car due to the failure of successive Governments to put in place sustainable public transport options;

— the average cost of motor insurance rose by nine per cent last year to its highest point in five years, which is almost double the European average and over four times the rate of inflation; and

— Irish motorists pay some of the highest prices in the European Union for petrol and diesel;

further acknowledges that:

— private toll companies have recorded millions of euros in after-tax profits in the past year and the profits of motor insurance companies in the state have been way above industry norms in recent years;

— the existing gold-plated PPPs contracts that permit these toll increases, and generous traffic guarantee payments, are a legacy of bad economic policy choices and decisions made by successive Fianna Fáil-led administrations; and

— the Government's latest action plan to lower insurance premiums follows a similar action plan during their previous term which failed to make any difference;

condemns:

— the failure of the Government, in particular the Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien to respond and include the necessary financial provisions in Budget 2026, and to cancel these planned increases and lessen the burden on workers, families, and businesses in the midst of the cost-of-living and fuel crisis; and

calls on the Government to:

— reverse the carbon tax increase of May 2025 on home heating oil and gas, reverse the carbon tax increase of October 2025 on diesel and petrol, and do not proceed with future scheduled increases;

— end the financial penalty imposed on people who cannot afford to pay motor tax in one single payment;

— stand up to insurance companies to ensure fair and stable motor insurance costs and to address the disproportionate profits in this industry;

— progress and enact Sinn Féin’s Judicial Council (Amendment) Bill 2021, to ensure the benefits of reforms are passed onto customers in the form of lower premiums, rather than captured as higher profits for insurance companies; and

— stop the proposed toll increases planned for January 2026.

Drivers are being hammered with skyrocketing costs, paying some of the highest prices for petrol and diesel in the EU.

The cost of motor insurance continues to also increase year after year despite lower awards. Now, the Government wants to hit drivers with another round of toll hikes. These are people who are commuting to work, driving their kids to school and just trying to get from A to B. The Government's policies are punishing people for just living their everyday lives. It is time to end the rip-off and cut the cost of driving. Enough is enough. The solutions are at the Government's fingertips, but it has made the political choice not to use them. Let us be clear - these extra costs are not inevitable. They are political choices made by this Government, choices that put private profit ahead of public need and choices that deepen the cost-of-living crisis. This is not just about cars. It about fairness, about whether people can afford to get to work, college, school or the doctor, and about rural communities where public transport is limited and people are being doubly punished yet again.

In relation to toll hikes, the Minister for Transport has the power to stop them but is choosing not to. He did it before when Sinn Féin forced the issue in 2023. The Government can do it again this time. Instead, it is allowing the toll operators that already pocket millions of euro in profits to treat Irish drivers like cash cows. Following the previous toll hikes, profits for private operators of the Limerick tunnel surged by 10% to €12 million while toll income on the M50 reached €212 million, €12.5 million of which was from penalties for drivers. If traffic falls on these roads, guess what? The taxpayer steps in to guarantee private profits through the traffic guarantee clause. This is a rigged system and a safety net for corporate owners, and it is ordinary people who pay the price.

The price of petrol and diesel tells us a similar story. Irish drivers already pay the third highest petrol and diesel prices in the EU. What do Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents do in response? They push prices even higher with continual increases in the regressive carbon tax on petrol and diesel. Despite what some say, annual increases are not set in stone. It is another example of a policy this Government is actively pursuing. After all, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the regional Independents, supported to the bitter end by the Healy-Raes, could have chosen not to proceed with the increase, which has hiked up the cost of petrol and diesel even further. Their stubbornness on this is frustrating, not least because certain Government-supporting TDs and Ministers of State deny they are playing any part in it whatsoever. I fail to see how a Minister of State, who is in government, can absolve himself from any responsibility for the policies of that Government. The Minister of State, Michael Healy-Rae, is either part of it or he is not.

Insurance is more of the same, with ordinary people being ripped off no matter what way they turn. If a driver is paying the average premium here, which is now €620, did the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, know that they are paying almost double the European average? Profits in the insurance industry have been far above industry norms for the past few years while ordinary families struggle. Sinn Féin has a plan to stand up to the insurance companies in our Judicial Council (Amendment) Bill 2021 so that savings from reforms go to customers and not into the pockets of multinational wealthy insurers, but this Government drags its feet.

Then there is a motor tax, which is a system that penalises those who cannot pay in one sum lump. If a person is wealthy, they pay less. if they are struggling, they pay more. This is not fairness; it is a punishment.

It is the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and regional Independents that have abandoned ordinary people. Before the election, they promised tax cuts for workers. They gave them to banks and developers. They promised to help with energy bills. They withdrew credits. They promised affordable childcare and failed to deliver. Now, they want to make driving even more expensive. Our motion is simple: stop the toll hikes; end the penalty for paying motor tax in instalments; stand up to the insurance companies; and reverse the carbon tax.

Deputies:

Hear, hear.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The Government is choosing to make driving more expensive. Instead of getting prices under control and ending the rip-off, the Government is actually making things worse. Election promises are now in the rear view mirror, disappearing like snow off the ditch. We have seen the biggest budget deliver massive tax cuts for developers, investors and landlords, but nothing for workers. Every worker will be worse off next year. If a person drives to work, they will be hit with a double whammy. It starts with standing idly by as insurance companies rip people off. Instead of standing up to the insurance companies, the Government makes excuses for them. The average claim cost per policy costs the insurance company less than €400, but the average premium is far over €600 and far higher than that for young people. That is the simple fact that no industry spin can change. I have no doubt that Government TDs will stand up and defend the indefensible. They will parrot industry lines. They can dress it up whatever way they like, but we are getting ripped off and the Government is letting it happen.

On top of that, we have carbon tax hikes. Each and every year, that is the Government's plan for the next number of years. The Government is planning to add 10 cent to the price of every litre of petrol and 12 cent to every litre of diesel. No one can seriously still believe that this is an environmental measure. We have seen in recent years sky-high petrol and diesel prices and people still had to drive to work, bring their kids to school and make appointments because driving is a necessity for many people. It is madness to think that this price hike will do anything other than make life harder for people in my constituency and elsewhere across the State. How many times did we hear the Independents jumping up and down about carbon tax only to jump into bed with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael at the first chance? We saw Michael Healy-Rae roaring last month when we called him out. He wants people to believe that carbon tax hikes have nothing to do with him. First, we have Micheál Martin saying that the banks were never bailed out. Then, we have Simon Harris saying he never signed the dodgy children's hospital contract. Now, we have Michael Healy-Rae saying that he has nothing to do with price hikes on petrol and diesel. You could not make it up.

Here is the chance - the chance to vote to scrap carbon tax increases and let us see whose side they are on. This is a chance to vote against carbon tax increases and tolls going up in January and to stop the insurance rip-off. It is another chance to deal with one of the meanest Government penalties that there is, which is the punishment for anyone who cannot afford to pay their motor tax in one go. How it works is that if a driver, for any reason, cannot afford their motor tax and needs to pay it in instalments, then this Government charges them more. A person hits a financial patch of trouble and the Government hits them with a penalty. It is mean, it is wrong and it sends out the wrong message that the Government could not care less. This is an opportunity. I commend Deputy Daly on bringing this motion before the Dáil because it is time that we made life affordable. Let us start by making driving affordable. The least the Government should do is not make it worse but that is exactly what it is doing at this point in time.

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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Drivers are being ripped off across the board when it comes to the cost of motoring. From sky-high fuel costs, car insurance costs and now a fresh round of toll hikes come January, workers and families are seeing no let-up in the cost-of-living crisis. Ireland is one of the most expensive places to run a car, with recent analysis showing that we have the third highest motor fuel costs in the EU. Couple this with rip-off car insurance costs and it is clear that Irish motorists are paying far more to commute to work, drive their kids to school or go about their day when compared with European drivers. This is not acceptable.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael might want to wash their hands of this issue, but these rip-off costs are the direct result of their policies. Budget 2026 was a clear example of how the Government had failed to support families during this cost-of-living crisis. In that budget, the Government decided to withdraw cost-of-living supports and to continue to increase the carbon tax on petrol and diesel. The Government has failed to hold insurance companies accountable for their rip-off prices and to implement Sinn Féin's proposals to tackle them. These decisions are a slap in the face to households that are already struggling to make ends meet.

As someone who comes from a rural constituency, the reality for my constituents is that they literally have no other option but to drive. It is not a luxury; it is an absolute necessity. The Government is often out of touch with the reality of life in rural Ireland. These increases are punishing people in my constituency and across the State just for going about their daily lives. They have no alternative, but they have to face increased carbon taxes, fuel prices and car insurance costs. All of these increases add up to a significant proportion of a household's income. It is clear that the Government does not understand the impact that these decisions are having and has no intention of standing up for ordinary workers and families.

This motion is an opportunity for the Government to end the rip-off in motor costs. Instead, it is going to sit on its hands while the cost of petrol and diesel continues to rise, it increases the carbon tax and it fails to stand up against insurance companies. We are providing the Government with the tools to lower the cost of driving for households. I call on the Government to act to support households in the here and now.

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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The question I keep asking is what this Government has against motorists and people in rural communities. People in constituencies such as Cavan-Monaghan have no choice but to use their cars to get work, do their grocery shopping and bring children to childcare or after-school activities.

There is no alternative to using the car, but it is getting more and more expensive to do so. The Government is actually making people's lives harder. The cost of car insurance, for example, went up more than 9% last year. We now have the highest insurance costs in five years. It is double the European average. There has been a complete failure on the part of the Minister of State and the Government to tackle the cost of insurance. I know that by looking at my own bill, so the Minister of State can stop shaking his head. People know that the cost of their insurance is going up because they see it in their bill. While the Minister of State shakes his head, they are burdened by those costs.

On top of all the costs that workers and families have, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are actually making things worse. They are putting up petrol and diesel prices by increasing carbon tax. These are supposedly behavioural taxes, but they make no sense whatsoever when people have no option but to drive. They are just putting additional financial pressure on people who are already struggling. Now the Government is allowing increases in tolls on the roads people need to use to get to work. The contracts which allow these unacceptable, punitive increases during a cost-of-living crisis are just another legacy of bad economic policy decisions made by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments.

Private toll companies have recorded millions of euro in after-tax profits in the past year and motor insurance companies continue to make huge profits all at the expense of motorists. Then, to make matters worse, the Government is doing nothing whatsoever to deal with the other cost-of-living pressures that families are facing. We had a budget with €9 billion in additional spending. What did the average worker or family receive in return? A kick in the teeth. Nothing out of that went towards them. Housing, childcare, energy and grocery costs are putting people under pressure and rising all the time, while the Government sits on its hands and its members shake their heads at reality. People are struggling and the Government has turned its back on them. The toll increases and the carbon tax increases must be scrapped. This motion allows TDs from all parties to stand up for their constituents. The real message that needs to come out of this debate is that it is time to give people who are under pressure a break. This is the Government's chance to do so.

Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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As we speak, Irish drivers who are going about their business and driving home from work are paying more for their petrol and diesel than drivers in other European countries. The Government will point to geopolitical factors as the reason for these high petrol and diesel prices, but people should not let the Government fool them. It is Government policy that is driving up the cost of filling up their car. In the budget the Government increased the carbon tax on petrol again by adding an extra €3 to the cost of filling up a tank. This was a Government choice. In the previous term, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs voted to increase carbon tax by €15. Again, this was a Government choice. During a cost-of-living crisis, Government policy has actively driven the cost of petrol and diesel through the roof.

As has been said, the cost of car insurance has sky-rocketed in Ireland. The average cost of motor insurance rose by 9% last year to its highest point in five years. That is almost double the European average and over four times the rate of inflation. Why are Irish drivers being penalised more than their European neighbours? It is because of a weak Government with weak policies that prioritises big businesses over ordinary working families.

One of the calls in the Sinn Féin motion is for the Government to stand up to insurance companies and address the disproportionate profits of this industry. I had a father contact me this week. He has an 18-year-old son who took out insurance on his first car after passing his test. That in itself is a brilliant achievement for such a young man. The policy cost €1,933 for the year. Understandably, as he is just starting to work as an apprentice electrician and does not have this sort of money to pay upfront, he opted to pay the deposit with the balance paid over nine months. To his shock and horror, the cost went from €1,933 to €2,503. This young apprentice electrician is penalised by an extra charge of €570 for not having the money upfront. Here is a young man, starting his journey to making a positive contribution to society and he is being punished. How is that fair?

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank my colleague, an Teachta Pa Daly, for bringing forward this motion. It is timely. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis the least we should be able to expect from any decent Government is that it would not make things worse. Yet, somehow, at every single turn, it manages again to twist the pressure that is on hard-working, hard-pressed people. My constituents living in north County Dublin, in places like Rush, Lusk, Skerries and Balbriggan, towns that have expanding populations, are experiencing worsening levels of public transport. The people in the towns and villages I represent cannot find work locally due to decades of underinvestment by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments. The vast majority of workers I represent have to leave Dublin Fingal West for work. The buses and trains are overcrowded. The buses often disappear. The Minister of State will have heard me talk about ghost buses. Unreliable service forces people into their cars. They now have to get into their cars five days a week because, again, the Government has done nothing to support remote work or, indeed, remote workers. In the space of a couple of months, my constituents, who have no choice but to drive, are going to see the cost of their insurance, the cost of filling their car and the cost of travelling on the toll roads go up and, all the while, the insurance companies are making a healthy and handsome profit. The toll operators are doing quite nicely, thank you; there is no cost-of-living crisis there. It is the people I represent in north County Dublin who have been forced into their cars, having been left with absolutely no choice, who will have to foot the bill for this do-nothing, out-of-touch Government, which refuses to stand up for them and thinks it can endlessly pile charges on top of them. The Minister of State has left them with no choice. I urge him to support this motion and end the rip-off.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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It is so disappointing that when people are under such pressure that the Government does so little to try to help them out. People who are driving in rural areas - I represent a rural constituency - have little option but to drive wherever they need to go, whether it is to a hospital appointment, to work or to bring their children to school. Everything else in rural Ireland has been cut back and squeezed down. At a certain time of year, all of us will have people on to us about school bus transport. The children who would have got a bus to school when we were going to school cannot get the bus any more and their parents have to drive them to school. At the same time, people see the price of fuel going up all the time. They also see the price of insurance, which was mentioned by many contributors. I certainly know about it. I have a young family, several of whom are driving now. They started in the last three or four years and getting insurance costs them €1,700, €1,800 or €2,000 to insure a car. It is very debilitating for young people starting off in life to face such high costs for insurance. We were told a couple of years ago, when there was big pressure to bring down claims, that bringing them down would bring down insurance premiums. It did not happen. This is a reflection on a Government that is not up to the job that it needs to do in putting controls on these industries that profiteer off the backs of ordinary people.

The other issue is the tolls. We all use the toll roads every day of the week. We have no option but to do so. This is a huge problem because you have to pay every time you go through a toll and it clocks up all the time. As bad as it is for those of us who drive a car, for those driving vans and trucks and delivering food and so on to shops, it is even worse. That is going to put more pressure on the cost of living because, at the end of the day, it is the consumer who will have to pay those costs. If the Government is serious about doing something about the cost of living, it needs to support this motion and act on these issues. Coming in here and telling us the Government is doing its best and that things are not as bad as we are trying to paint it is not going to work because ordinary people know what they have to pay. They see it every week when they put fuel in their car. They see it every year when they get their insurance premium. They see it every day when they go through the toll roads. They need help from the Government, not platitudes.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome, on behalf of the Minister for Finance, the opportunity to discuss the Private Members' motion tabled by Sinn Féin regarding the cost of motoring. The Government proposes to put forward a countermotion.

While it is acknowledged that the cost of motoring may be a challenge for many, the Opposition's motion fails to take into account the progress made by this and previous Governments in the areas it has highlighted.

We would be in a much worse position if it were not for this progress, something conveniently ignored by many colleagues opposite.

The Opposition motion does not take into consideration the costs involved in its proposal, nor does it propose alternative revenue-raising measures. If it was serious about its proposal, it would at least put forward the costings in terms of how it would eliminate all of its proposals. It also ignores Ireland’s international commitments on climate, while offering no alternative mitigation measures. It is yet another example of a party making lots of noise, but when push come to shove it is unable to back it up with real work.

First, the motion seeks to reverse the most recent carbon tax increase for petrol and diesel and reverse the 1 May increases in home heating fuels. This ignores the recommendations from the Climate Change Advisory Council and scientific experts who agree with the planned carbon tax increases. Ireland’s carbon tax is an integral part of the Government’s response to the need to address climate change, as well as Ireland’s legally binding commitments established in the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021.

Importantly, the additional yield raised by carbon tax is ring-fenced for climate action and just transition measures. Budget 2026 provides for over €1.1 billion to be allocated towards such measures, an additional €163 million on the allocation for 2025. Further, €350 million of this is allocated to targeted social protection interventions. As of budget 2026, the Government has allocated over €4.2 billion in carbon tax revenue for climate action and just transition measures since 2020. Many such measures are welcomed by Opposition Members when they are announced. ESRI analysis shows the lower income deciles are better off as a result of the social protection measures funded by the increased carbon tax.

Analysis undertaken for budget 2026 using SWITCH, the ESRI tax and benefit model, to simulate the impact of the carbon tax increase and the compensatory welfare package estimates that the net impact of the combined measures is progressive - they help people who are less well off, something the Opposition fails to acknowledge. Half of households are better off due to the measures part funded by additional carbon tax funds, with households in the bottom four income deciles benefiting the most.

Ultimately, it must be recognised that a number of factors affect the final retail price of fuels, including energy market dynamics, wholesale pricing, individual retail pricing policy, transport costs, exchange rate fluctuations and taxation. While taxation affects the final retail price, amendments to tax rates cannot fully absorb price shocks given the larger impacts of energy markets and embedded costs, as well as pricing policy at wholesale and retail level.

On the surcharge on motor tax, funnily enough, I am in general agreement with Sinn Féin. However, nowhere in the motion does it state how it will fund the €35 million it costs to equalise the rate for people paying in instalments. I agree that people who pay in instalments for motor tax are those who cannot afford to pay annually and should not be penalised. However, I note that the general scheme of the National Vehicle and Driver File Bill 2025 proposes the elimination of the requirement to display a paper disc and, as such, there is scope for review of the surcharge in the future. That is something I would very much support.

Motor insurance premiums are influenced by multiple factors, including risk exposure, legal expenses and claims trends. Looking to premium trends in the UK and eurozone, premiums increased proportionately by 65% in the UK between 2016 and 2024 and by around 20% in the same period across the eurozone. In contrast, Ireland saw a 34% proportional reduction in average motor insurance premiums over the same period.

A significant number of measures were introduced by the previous Government under the 2020 action plan for insurance reform to address issues with the cost and supply of insurance, namely the establishment of the Office to Promote Competition in the Insurance Market, a rebalancing of the duty of care, enhanced data transparency from the national claims information database, the reform of the Injuries Resolution Board, IRB, and the introduction of the personal injuries guidelines.

The latest data from the national claims information database on motor insurance premiums shows that the average premium increased by 9% last year to €623. However, it is still lower than its peak in 2017 of €729. While certain reforms have begun to stabilise award levels, delays in litigation and wider inflationary factors continue to impact premiums.

Taking account of general price developments in the economy, it is only in recent times that the gains from previous Government reforms have begun to be eroded. This is something we acknowledge and are taking action on. The Government developed additional reform measures as part of the 2025 action plan for insurance reform, which I published in July 2025 - there was no submission from the party opposite - to enhance transparency, affordability and competitiveness.

One of the key actions in the new action plan is the development of a transparency code for the insurance industry. The code will require insurers to provide simple and understandable explanations of how premiums are formed and what broader factors influence pricing. It will ensure that the insurance market operates with integrity and builds trust and that consumers are empowered to make informed decisions. The development of this code is well under way, and I will discuss it with my colleagues on the Cabinet sub-committee on insurance reform in a matter of weeks.

High legal costs also remain a challenge and are impacting the cost of motor insurance. The implementation of further legal reform to strengthen the role of the IRB and amend the Judicial Council Act 2019 to strengthen transparency and implement a robust process for a future review of personal injuries guidelines are priority actions in the action plan to address further transparency and affordability of insurance.

I have been advised by my officials that the Sinn Féin Private Members’ Bill - the Judicial Council (Amendment) Bill 2021 - draws heavily on measures introduced in the UK and, as such, does not take account of the significant past and ongoing work undertaken by the Government to address the cost of insurance. The Bill could potentially undermine ongoing efforts to reform the insurance sector, while also creating barriers to market competition and potentially passing additional costs to consumers in the form of higher premiums, which is something I do not think the party wants.

The Opposition motion also seeks to stop the proposed toll increases planned for January 2026. The motion fails to recognise that there have been extra inflationary costs in the construction industry, including products used for pavement repair, meaning the cost of the protection and renewal of the existing road network has increased significantly. The Opposition also failed to recognise that revenues raised by toll roads are invested in the operation and maintenance of our road network, as well as paying off the cost of loans to build these roads.

In terms of the framework for setting tolls, toll by-laws for each individual road set out the basis for calculating maximum tolls each year. Maximum tolls are calculated for each vehicle category. Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, calculates the maximum tolls for the Dublin tunnel and the M50 and decides the tolls that should apply. The public-private partnership, PPP, companies calculate the maximum tolls for the eight PPP concession schemes and propose the tolls that should apply. The mechanism for these calculations is set out in the individual toll by-law and is based on the consumer price index, CPI. Actual tolls charged may not exceed the calculated maximum toll for each scheme. Following the application of the CPI inflation figure of 2% for the period from August 2024 to August 2025, the board of TIl has approved a number of toll changes from 1 January.

It is worth pointing out that auto fuel prices in June 2022 recorded that average petrol prices were €2.17 per litre and average diesel prices were €2.15 per litre. As of Monday, 11 November, average prices are significantly lower, with petrol prices at €1.74 per litre and diesel prices at €1.68 per litre. It is also worth reiterating that motor insurance premiums, while having risen in the past 12 months due to inflationary pressures, are still approximately 34% lower than their peak in 2016. We acknowledge the increases in the past nine months. Work is under way to address that.

The Government cannot accept the motion put forward by Sinn Féin as it does not reflect established facts or realities. Fiscal policy must strike a balance between, on the one hand, providing relief where it is appropriate to do so and, on the other, maintaining our public finances on a sustainable trajectory over the medium term. The House should reject Sinn Fein’s Private Members’ motion on the cost of motoring and instead support the Government’s countermotion.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I thank my colleague, Deputy Daly, for bringing this motion to the House. I can hardly believe what the Minister of State read out because, basically, the thread running through it is that there is no problem, and he is not going to do anything to fix it-----

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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That is not what I said.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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-----because there is no problem in the first instance. Right through it, it goes on about how much better off people are. I can tell the Minister of State that people in County Mayo certainly do not feel better off. Despite the Government's lack of investment in public transport, however, it seems completely unaware that many people have no choice but to drive. In rural areas and in my own constituency of Mayo, there is more often than not no public transport option or no bus routes or train line and no alternative but to drive.

The whole idea of carbon tax as the Government presents it is to change behaviours, but how can it change behaviours if it does not provide a proper alternative? For people in Belmullet, Ballina or Ballyhaunis, the car is not a choice; it is a lifeline. Yet, this Government's policies are making it more expensive by the day to keep a car on the road. Budget 2026 added another carbon tax hike on petrol and diesel, that is, an extra €3 on a full tank on top of the €15 already piled on in recent years. This is not climate action. It is a cash grab that punishes ordinary workers, families and small businesses who simply have no alternative. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have overseen an Ireland where the cost of living is spiralling out of control. Motorists are paying some of the highest petrol and diesel prices in the EU. Car insurance costs are up 9% this year alone, which is double the European average, while profits in the insurance industry soar. That does not cost anything for the Government. The Minister if State is saying that Sinn Féin has not costed things. These are costs. We are allowing people to profit. Now, we learn that private toll companies operating under gold-plated public-private partnership contracts are recording millions of euro in profits while the Minister for Transport stands idly by. The toll on the M50 alone brought in over €212 million last year, with €12.5 million in penalties. That is not a sustainable transport policy. It is a rip-off. This rip-off has a knock-on effect on the cost of doing business. Small enterprises, couriers, hauliers and tradespeople are all struggling to stay afloat as transport costs eat into their margins. The recent receivership of Fastway, one of Ireland’s largest delivery companies, highlights how rising transport and fuel costs are putting pressure on the very backbone of our logistics and retail sectors. The impact has also been felt across our tourism industry, particularly in rural Ireland where visitors who hire cars to explore our Wild Atlantic Way or the Hidden Heartlands face rising fuel costs and toll costs. Sinn Féin is putting forward solutions tonight, and I suggest the Minister of State take some of them on board.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Again, we had a scripted speech from a Minister of State that was just a continuous attack against the Opposition and Sinn Féin. Every time we raise issues in relation to the cost of living, the Government’s response is to ask where are the solutions. We brought forward a motion today with solutions, and we had a very scripted speech from the Minister of State that rubbished every one of the solutions we put forward. What is also interesting is that on all the additional hikes and cost increases and the cost-of-living crisis, whether it is for motorists or whether it is on groceries or on rent or mortgages, the Government Members always blames everybody but themselves. If insurance prices go up, it is the insurance companies' fault. If rents go up, it is landlords' fault. If groceries go up, it is the supermarkets' fault. When it comes to the increase in petrol and diesel, however, the only people who can be blamed and should be blamed are in the Government because it increased the carbon tax, and that carbon tax increase has resulted in higher costs for motorists.

The Minister of State rubbished the Bill that was brought forward by Deputy Doherty. This was a Bill that was actually passed through this House in good faith by Sinn Féin, working with industry experts, consumers and people who are being ripped off because of crazy insurance costs, and this Government has done next to nothing. I am proud of the fact that we have brought forward solutions, but when it comes to the cost-of-living crisis, we have a Government that does not want to take responsibility for anything, blames everybody else and does not want to listen to any solutions, but then has the brass neck not even to accept that its own policies that it brought forward in the most recent budget have actually resulted in rising costs for motorists. The motorists in my constituency in Waterford, who have to have a car because the public transport is not there, know full well that is the case.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister of State wandered in here with a script and banged on about established facts and realities. The fact and reality are that if anything Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael had done over the last number of years worked, we would not be standing here. Motorists would not be carrying this disproportionate level of financial burden. Government Members act as commentators while the cost of relying on a car soars. They may try to wash their hands of this but it is simply untrue to put the myth out there that there is nothing they can do. Like so many of Fianna Fáil's and Fine Gael's policies, they are fuelling the cost-of-living crisis because there are solutions at their fingertips, but they are choosing to ignore them.

At a time when Irish motorists pay the third-highest fuel prices in the EU, the Government increased the carbon tax again, increasing the cost of a tank of fuel. Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael policy is actively driving up the cost of putting petrol or diesel into a car. The average motor insurance policy rose 9% last year, almost double the European average. As for motor tax, those with the means actually pay less than those who cannot afford the lump sum payment; those who have no choice but to pay in instalments. You literally could not make this up. These are ordinary people trying to get to work, get their kids to school and do the weekly shop and they are being punished by what the Minister of State - I stand to be corrected on this - said is to the tune of €35 million. That is absolutely scandalous. Now, the latest insult is another toll bridge and toll road increase. The toll bridge where I am on the M4 has people absolutely livid because not only are the tolls going up, but there is not a staff member to be found for dust since Covid. These costs disproportionately hit people living in rural Ireland, and due to the Government's policies and the successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael failures to build sustainable public transport options, people in parts of my constituency of Longford-Westmeath have no choice but to use their car because there is literally no alternative. This evening, the Government has a choice. It can stop the proposed toll increases, end the motor tax financial penalty and support this motion and end the rip-off.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I strongly welcome this motion. Let me be perfectly clear; the vast majority of families and workers in counties Carlow and Kilkenny cannot get through their day without a car. This is not a lifestyle choice. It is the direct result of policy failure by consecutive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments. The Government has failed to provide public transport that is either viable or effective and it has failed to put in place adequate transport infrastructure. Every week, I speak to workers who commute to Dublin. They all raise similar concerns that taking public transport is just not viable if they want to get to work on time. Instead, they drive for hours each day, adding to worsening congestion, and for this they face a triple lock of financial pressures, namely, sky-high fuel prices, spiralling insurance costs and now fresh toll hikes. It is cut after cut for them with no let-up. These are people doing their bit for society, and they never get a break.

I recently spoke to a young apprentice - one of those ordinary people doing everything right. He has learned a trade and is going to work and contributing, but the cost of running his car - his only way to get to work - is pushing him into debt. Our apprentices earn around €300 per week. Between insurance, the cost of diesel and petrol and now these planned toll hikes, it is suffocating. It is death by 1,000 cuts.

This week, I heard of a couple who moved to Thomastown because they were priced out of Dublin. They commute up and down to Dublin to work each week. They are enduring worsening traffic congestion and now they are facing increasing costs to simply get to work. There are thousands like them across rural Ireland. Public transport is simply not an option. There is no Luas or DART in Kilkenny. Upwards of €10 billion is to be spent on a metro for Dublin, while Carlow and Kilkenny are just left with measly crumbs. As always, it is one story for Dublin with another story for rural Ireland. Every year, this Government gives a green light to suck every last cent from those just trying to work and live in rural Ireland. It is just not good enough. They have no choice. We live in the countryside. To get my kids to school, I need a car. To go to the shop, I need a car. There is no bus that comes by us and we, like many others, have to have a car.

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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8 o’clock

On a point of order, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, mentioned that there was countermotion. That was not notified to the proposers. We checked with the Whip's office and it does not seem to have it either.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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The Journal Office received no countermotion.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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None?

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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None. They are examining it, but they have not received it.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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That is not good enough. We do not know what we are-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I cannot do any more. That is the situation. It was not moved.

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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There was none lodged. It was not moved.

Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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My thanks to Sinn Féin for tabling this motion on the cost of motoring, which is a serious cost for people. At the outset, I want to lay my cards on the table. As transport spokesperson for the Labour Party, I will always advocate for public transport and active travel ahead of private cars. I am of the view that we should do everything we can to encourage people to use greener, more sustainable modes of transport. That means making sure the option to travel by bus or rail or to cycle is available for everyone, wherever they may be going. The unfortunate reality is that we are obviously not there yet. There are a host of reasons that people remain reliant on their cars, including accessibility, and the fact that successive Governments invested in roads and ripped up railways across the country over decades.

In some parts of the country, it remains a fact that public and active travel infrastructure is virtually non-existent. It is no surprise that we find ourselves here. There have been improvements in recent years, like the 90-minute fare and the expansion of Local Link routes, but much more is needed to get us to a place where public transport is the preferred option for most people. I am not suggesting that every journey can or should be made on public transport. I use a car, but I recognise that some journeys are just prohibitively difficult to make on public transport or on a bike. Wherever possible, we should encourage and, more importantly, enable people to use public transport, to walk or to cycle. Unfortunately, that is aspirational for now.

I recognise that for many people private car use is their only feasible option a lot of the time. Across the country, the cost of getting from A to B has become a genuine source of stress for many households, workers, small businesses and communities, particularly those in rural Ireland. This is as much an issue of economic fairness and social inclusion as anything else. It demands a response that protects working people today while preparing for a sustainable and affordable transport system into the future. Motorists have faced sharp cost increases over recent years. The average motor insurance premium rose by approximately 9% in 2024 according to the CSO following a period of relative stability, as the Minister of State mentioned. According to AA Ireland, the average annual cost of running a car in 2024 was about €11,500, an increase of nearly 8% on the previous year that was driven largely by higher fuel, insurance and maintenance costs. Petrol and diesel prices in Ireland continue to rank among the highest in the EU. As of last month, petrol averaged €1.86 per litre compared with an EU average of €1.72 and diesel cost €1.79 per litre compared with an EU average of €1.66. Rural drivers who often have to rely on cars due to the lack of viable public transport can easily spend upwards of €100 a week just commuting to work. These costs need to be addressed responsibly.

As the motion notes, there are 11 toll roads in operation here Eight of these are run on the basis of public-private partnership arrangements. Some of those contracts, particularly those signed in the early 2000s, were seemingly poorly negotiated and excessively generous to private operators. Most of those deals were signed by Fianna Fáil-led Governments between 1997 and 2008. The legacy of those gold-plated public-private partnerships has left us with inflexible contracts and traffic guarantee clauses that mean the State sometimes compensates private companies when fewer cars use their roads. That is an outrage. The Labour Party has long argued for greater transparency in respect of public-private partnerships and a move back towards public ownership of critical transport infrastructure. Where profits are excessive and clauses allow tolls to rise automatically every January, every legal and financial tool must be used to renegotiate the contracts involved. TII estimates that road tolls raise around €400 million annually. Much of that revenue goes into the maintenance and financing of national roads, but much also does not. It goes into the pockets of private operators that have already made a healthy return on their investment if they are involved in financing the construction of whatever road it is. I am not against tolls in principle as long as they go towards maintenance of our roads and making them safer. The proliferation of bigger and heavier vehicles like SUVs on our roads do more damage to roads and pavements than smaller, lighter vehicles of previous decades so more maintenance of our roads is needed these days. I have an issue with increasing tolls in order to bump up the profits of operators. People have better things to do with their money in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis than handing it over to some private investment vehicle.

The motion also points to the fact that paying motor tax in instalments is more expensive than paying it in a single lump sum. For example, a driver paying an annual tax of €390 will pay around €410 if he or she chooses to pay quarterly. That is a surcharge of more than 5% and it disproportionately penalises lower income motorists who cannot afford to pay the lump sum. This is a simple matter of fairness. The Labour Party has been calling for reform of this unfair system for years. We proposed in 2023 that motor tax instalment surcharges be abolished or at least reduced to a purely administrative cost, estimated at less than 1%. The system, as it stands, is obviously regressive. Nobody should pay more simply because they cannot pay it all at once.

Motor insurance remains one of the great frustrations of Irish life. After the 2021 introduction of the new personal injury guidelines, average claim costs fell by almost 40%. However, as the Central Bank's 2024 report on the insurance sector shows, premium reductions averaged only 5% to 6%. Insurance companies here have enjoyed profit margins of 10% to 12%, which are far above the European norm of 5% to 6%. The gap between the two represents hundreds of millions of euro in excess profit extracted from motorists who were promised lower premiums in return for legal reforms. It is long past time that the Government stood up to the insurance industry, as my colleague Deputy Nash has called on it to do. We need a windfall levy on excess insurance profits where they exceed normal competitive returns. I also note the Labour Party's support for Sinn Féin's Judicial Council (Amendment) Bill, which is mentioned in the motion, as a means of ensuring that judicial reforms translate into actual savings for consumers.

Where the Labour Party and I diverge from the motion is on the issue of carbon tax. This is the second Sinn Féin motion I have spoken on to which I have not been able to give my full support because of the position taken on carbon tax. The Labour Party supports a just transition, not a punitive one. That is why we fought successfully for carbon tax revenue to be fully ring-fenced, with at least €500 million per year now directed towards energy efficiency, retrofitting, fuel poverty alleviation and rural transport initiatives. In budget 2025, €230 million from the carbon tax was allocated to the warmer homes scheme and retrofitting supports for low-income households, €100 million went to fuel allowance top-ups and social protection measures and €80 million was invested in rural bus and cycle infrastructure. If carbon tax increases were to be reversed, as the motion proposes, those funds would also be removed. This is money that directly supports the very people who are struggling the most. Carbon tax currently adds about 2.5 cent per litre to the price of petrol and diesel. That is equivalent to roughly €1.25 per 50-litre fill. That is not an insignificant amount, but it is certainly not the primary driver of record fuel prices. Global oil markets, refinery capacity and currency fluctuations are far more influential. I cannot support a blanket reversal in respect of carbon tax. Instead, I encourage the Government and other parties to take on board Labour Party's proposal for a refundable carbon tax credit for low- and middle-income households. This would enable us to protect those struggling with costs while making the big polluters pay their fair share and ensuring that the tax is progressive in outcome, not regressive in effect. Climate action must be socially just but abandoning a polluter pays principle in climate policy altogether would harm both the environment and the very people we aim to protect.

To return to the issue of public transport and active travel, for too many people, a car is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Motoring has become expensive because there has been underinvestment in alternatives for decades. Over 64% of daily journeys in Ireland are made by private car. In rural areas, that figure rises to 80%, yet one third of rural households still have no access to public transport. That is a policy failure. The long-term solution to high motoring costs has to be a reduction in car dependence. We can do that through continued investment in rural bus networks under Connecting Ireland. There has been good progress in recent years with the roll-out of Local Link routes. We need to build on this. We should also continue to build on the reduced fares introduced in 2022 and deliver safe cycling and walking infrastructure, particularly in commuter towns. Even talking about private car use from a sustainability perspective, we need greater investment in electric vehicle charging networks, in supports for used EV purchases and in making clean transport accessible to ordinary households.

We also have to do better on the roll-out of new public transport initiatives.

For example, in the context of the launch of phase 7 of the BusConnects programme a few weeks ago, many of the new routes serve my constituency of Dublin South-West. I have been inundated with complaints from constituents regarding the new F routes, be it in the context of ghost buses, cancellations or longer commute times into work. On the F1 route, it is taking between 20 to 30 minutes longer for some people to get into town from Tallaght. A public petition has been launched in my area requesting a rethink of the route. To be clear, I support BusConnects. The goal of improving interconnectivity is laudable. However, we are seeing a situation arise in the context of certain routes whereby public confidence is being undermined. We have also seen recurring problems on the S6 and S8 routes since they were launched. Frequent cancellations and breakdowns were happening earlier in the year. At that time, Go-Ahead, which operates the routes, blamed this on a lack of mechanics. However, the same issues start to rear their heads again in the past couple of weeks. Will the Minister of State and the NTA engage meaningfully when my constituents contact them about these issues instead of issuing pro formaresponses the whole time?

My area has long been poorly served by public transport. In the long term, we want to see the MetroLink being built. We welcome the fact that planning permission for that project has been granted. We want to see MetroLink extended to Dublin South-West. For now, however, we are dependent on buses that can be caught up in traffic. It is vitally important that people can rely on public transport, that buses are prioritised on our roads and that fares are kept low.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Anois, we have the Social Democrats. Deputies Whitmore, Hearne and Cummins are dividing the time equally.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Deputy Cummins will not be contributing, so Deputy Hearne and I will share the time. I will take eight or nine minutes and Deputy Hearne will take the remainder.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue. There are many very valuable points made by Sinn Féin in its motion. There is no doubt the cost of motoring is a real pressure for households. Rural households are hit particularly hard by this cost. Where public transport options are limited or where they are not keeping pace developments in society, is also very problematic for some households. I will come back to that matter later.

People feel trapped by rising costs. It is not just the transport or motoring costs they face in trying to and from work and school; there are also electricity costs and mortgage costs. Everything is going up and up. The issue of motoring costs is exacerbating the stress and frustration people feel. The reality is there are some structural issues that need to be addressed in the context of these costs for motorists. Unless we look at those issues, which have been baked into the system - and have been there for a number of years - we are not going to get to the crux of the matter. There is a real opportunity to look at those issues to see if we can somehow address them.

One of the biggest examples of these issues is the privatisation of the toll roads. Year after year, motorists pay millions in tolls. The profits from those tolls flow to private companies under the terms contracts that were signed during the Celtic Tiger era. These public-private partnerships were sold as a way to deliver infrastructure quickly, but the reality is that they have locked the State into gold-plated deals that guarantee private profits for decades. These contracts are a legacy of bad policy decisions, and ordinary motorists have been paying the price for them for many years. Last year alone, private toll operators made €234.45 million in Ireland. That is up by about €30 million since 2022. Every January, toll charges rise again. These increases are not about improving roads or services; they are solely about increasing private profit. Meanwhile, the housing crisis continues to push workers further away from our cities and towns, forcing longer commutes and higher toll costs just to get to work. This is fundamentally wrong.

Roads are public infrastructure. They should serve the public interest as opposed to the interests of private shareholders. We need a serious conversation about how to unwind these contracts and bring toll roads back into public control. That will not happen overnight, but it must be part of any long-term strategy to reduce motoring costs, otherwise we will keep having this debate every year while private operators continue to profit. There has been quite a lot of discussion in the media regarding private operators, public entities versus private entities and how private operators are much more efficient and can deliver projects quicker and at less expense. This is the narrative that is coming from large corporate owners who are indicating that this is how we should deal with our infrastructure deficits. That is not always the case. This is one area that clearly demonstrates that. The reality is that when you are talking about private versus public, private operators have one thing in mind - and it is their fiducial responsibility to have one thing in mind - and that is making a profit for their shareholders. They do not think about public good or about any of those other issues that public entities have to consider when rolling out road projects. The State should be delivering specific and fundamental pieces of infrastructure, and we should not be relying on public operators to do so. Ultimately, private sector involvement only costs the public more. Tolls are just one aspect in that regard.

Fundamentally, what we need is people to have the ability to move away from private cars. In order to do that, we need a properly functioning public transport system. We do not have that as of now. We need a public transport system that is efficient, affordable, frequent and reliable. There are clearly still many difficulties with that, and it is not just in rural areas. Many people in rural areas assume that public transport in Wicklow and other places in the greater Dublin area is really good, but that is far from the truth.

I want to talk about public transport in Wicklow for a moment. The rail system in the Wicklow is not fit for purpose. I have been contacted multiple times by constituents who commute each morning from Wexford through Wicklow town and into Dublin and who are forced to stand for the majority of the journey. People are fainting on the train because the carriages are so overcrowded. That is completely unacceptable. There are only two trains on that line that will get people into Dublin for their morning shift. The conditions people are being forced to travel in are unacceptable. I have raised this multiple times with the Minister, but we have not seen any improvement.

In the context of our bus service, the towns of Wicklow and Greystones are 20 minutes apart. However, there is not a single bus that runs between them. Greystones has the DART and Wicklow has the very poor rail service to which I refer. You would think the one thing that could be quickly delivered without the need for major infrastructural development is a bus that would bring people from Wicklow town to the DART station in Greystones. Yet, the NTA will not deliver that simple thing. How can we expect people to get out of their cars and onto more sustainable forms of transport, like buses, in order to make the journeys the need to make? They cannot do that. As a result, they are stuck in their cars and facing huge costs - including those relating to insurance, fuel and tolls - because the State has not provided sufficient public transport for them.

What I have outlined impacts my constituents on a weekly basis. I recently heard about several primary and secondary students who were waiting for a bus that never arrived. They eventually got to school on three separate buses. They were absolutely soaked when they arrived to school late. That was just going from Greystones to Kilcoole. Obviously, there are many gaps in our public transport system. Until those gaps are dealt with, we are going to continue to force people into cars and make them incur incredible costs and pressures because of that.

I wanted to pass that on to the Minister of State. I did not want to let the opportunity to discuss public transport to pass, particularly as it is a key part of the issue we are debating. Public transport needs to be affordable, reliable and efficient.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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The issue Sinn Féin has raised is extremely important. The cost of motoring, particularly in the context of tolls, is a massive issue for people. This is another example of the price gouging taking place in this country. The Government throws its hands in the air and asks, "What can we do about the cost-of-living crisis?" The Government created the aspect of the cost-of-living crisis that relates to tolls.

It was Fianna Fáil that brought in the public-private partnerships back in the 2000s in the years of the Celtic tiger. I know quite a bit about this because I wrote my PhD about public-private partnerships. I remember that one of the best descriptions of them was, not public-private partnerships, but plundering the public purse. Public-private partnerships were an idea that came from England and they were essentially about privatising infrastructure. Governments used the excuse at the time that they did not the finance, and they needed these forms of private finance to come in. It is making the same argument about housing now and we see the result of it. Hundreds of millions of euro is being paid by motorists in profit to these companies. We should be taking the privatised public-private partnerships back into public ownership and reducing that cost. Public-private partnerships are not a way to deliver infrastructure. When we look at the cost of motoring, it costs over €10,000 per year for the average petrol a diesel car on the road. I want to talk about the issue in my own constituency and what is happening now. Because of the mess made of the introduction of phase 7 of BusConnects, people in my constituency, in Finglas, Ballymun and Glasnevin, are being forced back into their cars because the bus service is not working in the same way as it used to. They have been pushed back into paying higher costs of fuel and we can see that the traffic in Dublin now is absolutely diabolical. It has got worse and there is gridlock. People are forced to pay more and more in fuel costs as they sit in their cars because public transport is not working.

When we look at the issues in my constituency, there have been huge changes in places like Beneavin Road where the bus stop has actually been removed. We have elderly people who cannot access public transport. We have the ending of the No. 9 route, leading to the north of Glasnevin being disconnected from the centre of Glasnevin with an effect on schools, sports and other social activities. Many routes have been curtailed or stopped, including the Nos. 9, 13, 11, 14, 40 and 83 and the replacement routes, the E spine and the F spine, have not served the communities in the same way. We have huge issues of connectivity, particularly for people who have mobility issues and for children trying to go to school. For example, Finglas East has become effectively a bus desert with less frequent services. There is no direct bus service from Glasnevin Avenue down to O'Connell Street now. This is having a huge impact and while I support BusConnects, and it working, and public transport working, this is a mess for people. The public transport has to work for people, and I am being inundated with issues from people who are saying very clearly that the changes to the bus services are not working. The National Transport Authority and the Minister need to take this on board and we need to make our bus services work. If we genuinely want to get people out of their cars and if we want to actually help them with the cost-of-living crisis and the cost of motoring, then we need to make sure our public services and our bus services, actually work. People are caught between a rock and a hard place, getting back into the car because the bus is not working, facing even higher costs, or relying on a transport system that for some people is no longer working for them. BusConnects, as I said, is an ambitious project which has huge potential but only if it actually serves the people in the communities and the areas.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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I fully support this motion and its calls for the Government to stop price hikes to petrol and diesel and to end the penalty imposed on people who cannot afford to pay motor tax in one single payment and the proposed toll increase planned for January 2026. It is an extremely expensive time to be a motorist, especially in rural areas like Donegal, where we are forced to drive due the lack of public transport and where the only form of public transport we have is a bus. Anyone without a car in rural Ireland faces social and economic exclusion due to this. Work, education and shops are all held to ransom by the limited transport services we have. My constituents are bearing the brunt of motor costs and it is completely unfair, especially in a cost-of-living crisis. Households are struggling to pay their bills, fill their tanks and keep food on the table and it is unacceptable. Families are faced with very difficult decisions on whether they can afford to make journeys they once made. This is particularly the case for families in rural areas and families impacted by the defective concrete crisis, where the parents have to travel very long distances to gain school access, work, sports and after-school activities and public amenities such as playgrounds, parks and swimming pools. Parents want their children to have the same opportunities that they had and they are being compromised. The current cost-of-living crisis is affecting every aspect of people's lives and motoring is definitely at the forefront of this. Parents in defective homes are already forced to make so many unfair decisions on their families. They have to decide whether to send their children to college or allocate the funds to rebuild their already damaged, crumbling homes, if they are fortunate enough to be in a position to do so. Whether people pay rent or halt education or healthcare, essential living costs are going by the wayside just to keep the cars on the road rolling. There are costs to families that are just not fair. There is also a higher risk of accidents when it comes to cars on the roads, Relying completely on cars as a mode of transport can be dangerous, especially in Donegal, because so many rural roads are not fit for purpose. For example, the N13 road in Drumkeen, where I live, has seen numerous accidents on the 2 km stretch approaching the village. Unfortunately, people have lost their lives. This is down to the fact that the roads need to be upgraded and safety measures need to be put in place, but these are not being done. On the route from Letterkenny to Ballybofey, the bus has to stop in the middle of a junction to let people out. They cannot even put a bus stop down, going into Ballybofey. It is a disadvantage to the town of Drumkeen and to the Finn Valley. In this day and age, it is a ridiculous situation, but as per usual, Donegal is the forgotten county.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I am pleased to be able to speak about how we could solve some of the very real impacts of high costs for motorists. In the couple of minutes I have, I want to focus on how drivers are being ripped off on the issue of insurance. For many years, reform of insurance, particularly motor insurance, has been promised but in the end, each time, this caves in to the same vested interests. We have endless reviews but no real action. Irish consumers continue to pay some of the highest insurance premiums in Europe because claims still end up in costly court battles. Legal fees often exceed the compensation itself and payouts, even for minor injuries, are well above EU norms. For example, Central Bank data from 2023 shows that legal costs make up almost 60% of some small-claim payouts. This is because, in our system, litigation dominates. Around 90% of injuries claims go to court, compared with just 4% going directly to the Insurance Resolution Board. As a result, we have payouts for minor injuries which remain two to four times higher than the EU average, and insurers cite this as a key driver of the high premiums that motorists here pay. Despite there having been some reforms, insurers have not passed on savings. The average profit margin in liability lines is over 13%, and again, that is twice the international average. Insurance firms are recording double-digit profits here in Ireland, even as claim costs actually fall. The Government talks tough it but it refuses to challenge the industry or the legal lobby that is benefiting from keeping things exactly as they are.

A new approach is needed, and the Green Party would argue that Ireland should adopt a no-fault compensation scheme for motor accidents. This would enable drivers and passengers to get quick and fair compensation without the legal battles and the endless blame game we are so familiar with. We should also empower the Injuries Resolution Board by making it the default and the binding route for most personal injuries claims. This would cut legal costs and delays. We should have standardised and capped compensation awards by aligning ourselves with EU norms. That would ensure fairness and it would also take away the jackpot elements that sometimes people experience, particularly for minor claims. There should be mandatory mediation of insurance disputes. This would help end more cases early and end them fairly. One thing we really need to improve on here is something the Greens would argue strongly for. We need transparency and accountability for insurers themselves. There should be a central database to monitor real costs and ensure that where there are premium reductions, they are actually being passed on to the motorists. There should be profit disclosure rules to stop hidden profit shifting through re-insurance or through reverse manipulation.

What would the outcome of these measures be? It would lower costs for consumers and ensure fairer treatment for genuine claimants. We have to move away from the half-measures we have seen in the past. The proposals from the Green Party would mean fairer settlements through a no-fault system, consistent award levels and full transparency to ensure the insurance companies were passing savings back to drivers. It is time to stop protecting the industry insiders and to start delivering a fair deal for motorists, homeowners, small businesses and communities all over the country.

Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I support this Private Members' motion. In the few minutes available to me, I will address a number of issues affecting south Tipperary. The N24 national primary road running from Limerick and the west through south Tipperary to Waterford and on to Rosslare is a major social and economic corridor. It serves all our major towns, including Tipperary town, Cahir, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir. Thousands of existing jobs are dependent on this roadway, as is our ability to attract new industry and jobs to south Tipperary. This national primary roadway is congested, the carriageway is substandard and many life-limiting and fatal road traffic accidents occur annually. This road requires urgent upgrading and I remind the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, of his commitment to provide funding for this roadway in 2026. He made this commitment at our meeting with him earlier this year and even stated he hoped to be in a position to allocate funding before the end of this year. I look forward to the Minister honouring that commitment, as I am sure he will.

While modern, safe roadways and motorways will always be essential for social and economic life, if the Government is serious about climate change, then we must consider free public bus and train services and implement a comprehensive bus and rail network across the whole country. This must be done, not just in large towns and cities, but in rural areas, many of which are almost bereft of any form of public transport. In south Tipperary, we need the urgent upgrading of the Limerick-Waterford railway service. This line serves Limerick Junction, Tipperary town, Cahir, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir. The current service is infrequent and slow. The track requires upgrading to take faster speeds and carriages need to be modernised. The connection times to the main rail lines at Limerick Junction and Waterford need to be synchronised. Clonmel is the main population centre and the railway station building there needs to be upgraded and fully reopened to provide a modern facility for the travelling public. These measures would provide a speedy, modern and comfortable service for customers and take large numbers of private cars off the road.

The recent introduction of the Local Link bus service in the town of Clonmel has been a huge success and it is used extensively. We must build on that success and extend the service to areas in the town not covered, as well as surrounding areas. These include areas like Oldbridge, Redmondstown, Powerstown, Kilsheelan, Lisronagh and Ballyclerahan. The Local Link service should also be rolled out to Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel and Tipperary town.

On the insurance issue referred to in the Private Members’ motion, reforms, including personal injury guidelines, new data from the Central Bank’s national claims information database, changes in duty of care law and initiatives on insurance fraud, were introduced in recent years. Insurers demanded these changes, claiming they were needed for premiums to fall, but of course premiums have not fallen. Claim volumes have fallen by 40% and median awards are down by 33% but premiums have increased by 17% and profits at 13% are double the international norm. The insurance companies must be tackled and tackled urgently.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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I have great regard for the Minister of State and hope he has the best of luck in this role, but he is nearly a year in it and car drivers are still being significantly financially assaulted in this country. The level of money they have to pay currently is quite incredible. Last year, drivers paid €1.9 billion in VAT and VRT. Last year, car drivers contributed to €4.1 billion in fuel taxes, which is the highest figure in the history of the State.

Car drivers are being hammered by tolls. In the last ten years, the M50 toll has collected €2.2 billion. The M50 is a monument to two things from this Government, which are waste on one level and rip-off Ireland on another level. I will give the Minister of State a reason for this. The two M50 bridges were built at a cost of £53 million. The public-private partnership that built them collected enough tolls in its first year to pay for the bridges completely. Interestingly enough, Pádraig Flynn signed the contract for the public-private partnership and in a subsequent tribunal it was found the company had given him money. This is how the system works here. The particular company then sold those tolls to the State for €600 million and the State since has taken €2.2 billion in tolls. That is savage and absolutely wrong. We have paid for these bridges ten or 15 times over. How can any Minister make an argument for the collection of tolls on bridges that have been paid for so many times?

We have a Government that has a policy of getting drivers out of their cars. It is a fair argument. We want to decarbonise society, so let us use tools to do it. There are two ways to do it, namely, the carrot and the stick. The carrot is the provision of public transport. Some 80,000 people in my county commute to work daily. They would give their left arms be able to commute to Dublin by train. Navan is the biggest town in the country without a rail line. It is quite incredible. The rail line for Meath has been promised for many a long year. Noel Dempsey promised the rail line in 1994 and now his daughter Aisling is promising it as well. The soonest we can see the rail line arriving in Meath is 2036 and that does not include a delay with the railway order, which has happened in the last couple of weeks. There is a public meeting in Navan in December about that. We have the Government using the stick of higher VAT, VRT, fuel prices, carbon taxes and tolls to get people out of their cars, but those people have no public transport alternatives for getting to work because the Government is not providing that to them. That is the real frustration in society.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)
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I will start with insurance and insurance fraud. Insurance fraud is being paid for by all the rest of the people who are trying to get insured. Let us say a person is trying to insure their vehicle in Limerick, Tipperary, Cork or Clare. If we look at the same vehicle across the different counties, it seems to be the insurance rates are higher where the cities are. We did a small synopsis with a Toyota Corolla. We took the same vehicle with a 1.4 litre petrol engine and looked for insurance for the same person across all the sectors. There was a difference of €900 in Tipperary, €400 in Cork and €700 in Clare.

It is the same vehicle but in different counties. The companies use geographic information systems to see how many claims are made in each individual county but they work on the basis of the whole county. We have looked into this and the number of claims being made by the same people or families in the one area have not been curtailed by the insurance companies. Looking at it from an insurance fraud perspective, a family and their wider relations could have made multiple insurance claims and the people of their county are now paying for them because a computer system says there are extra claims in the area. That is fraud. We need to target people making fraudulent claims. If somebody has an accident, that is fine but where someone claiming for an accident has had ten or 12 accidents before, that is a problem. If people have one, that is fine. They may have two. If they have three, questions should be asked. If there are multiple claims, the Government and the authorities need to target those people and put them on a computer system to see if their claims are related or connected to others to save the people who are trying to get on the insurance ladder in these counties money.

On younger drivers, where there is no public transport, we are trying to get learner and novice drivers onto the roads system. There was a system before that relied on a box. This box was put into the vehicle and, if you took off fast, braked too hard or went over the speed limit, it registered it. It was like having your parent sitting beside you telling you to slow down, drive on or be careful. The box was recording and the insurance company had a full set of data on your driving, your speed and everything else. It rewarded you if you drove properly. Can you imagine having that system for the young drivers, the people who are trying to get on the road? Let us give them a cheaper insurance quote and get them on the road. They would be tracked as they went until they had their full licences. They would have the basic training about keeping within the rules of the road and would be rewarded for driving properly. That is an incentive for people who are trying to get on the road.

Again, we need to tackle insurance fraud to make sure those people are held accountable.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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Every family, small business and commuter in rural Ireland is being squeezed not by choice, but by the weight of taxes and charges this Government keeps piling on. Independent Ireland has said from the start that the cost-of-living crisis did not fall from the sky but is being driven by Government decisions on taxation, overspending and waste. We support this motion because it recognises what people feel every day, which is that motoring has become unaffordable and unfair. These so-called green taxes have become another way to drain the pockets of working people, especially in rural Ireland. Independent Ireland has called for a freeze on regressive green taxes that hit low- and middle-income families hardest. We agree with the call to reverse the latest carbon tax hikes but we would go further. We want a total rethink of how we balance climate responsibility with economic reality. It is not green to push people into poverty while offering no real public transport alternative. In some cases, transport is being delivered but small villages like Corran and Drinagh have no transport at all by day. That must be tackled.

There is another issue the Minister of State must tackle. It is a very serious issue I emailed him about yesterday. It is happening more often than once. I am talking about the absence of reciprocal agreements for people who hold licences from other countries. A gentleman came to me this weekend. This is happening regularly. He had driven in Ireland and had a licence. He moved to Connecticut and worked there for many years. He then moved to Belgium and transferred his licence from Connecticut to Belgium. There was no issue there. He has been driving in Ireland for the last 12 months. He thought he would just have to renew his licence because there is an agreement between Belgium and Ireland. What happened? He found out that, because of his licence transfer in Connecticut 16 years ago, he cannot get a licence in Ireland. It is an astonishing situation. This man is no cost to the State. He is providing absolutely brilliant advice. He is a great man to work in his community. He now faces an inability to drive - I am sorry because this might not be the responsibility of the Minister of State personally - because the Department across the way from here is asleep at the wheel. People from New York or Chicago cannot come back to work in this country because we have no reciprocal agreements in place. I am told the Government could sign a unilateral agreement that would allow this gentleman to drive. His wife is in the same situation. They cannot drive in Ireland after paying huge money to buy a house, coming back here and investing in our economy. We have slammed the door in their faces. I was astounded. I gave this man a half an hour in my office the other day that I could ill afford to give but I did because I was astounded. As a politician, I am embarrassed to tell him there is no way, unless the Minister of State can do something. I would appreciate it if he could give me an answer today. He may not be able to do so today but he could certainly do so in the next day or two. It is a huge issue and it is something that is of great importance to people right across the world and not just in Connecticut and Belgium.

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate, however briefly. I agree with colleagues that the motor insurance rip-off has to end. I was calling for action on this issue 25 years ago and it is still going on. We have to increase competition. That is something we can do from an EU perspective. We also need measures to encourage better behaviour because, whether we like it or not, most accidents do involve younger drivers, especially male drivers. We need carrots and sticks. We need incentives. There was an interesting radio debate about Gen Z being influenced by incentives. We need incentives. If you do extra driving courses, you should get a reduction. If you are a fraudster or repeat offender of any age, you should have to pay, as other Deputies have said. You should not be let on the road in the first place if you continue with that.

Many people have no choice but to drive, which costs them a lot of money, because we do not have the investment we need in public transport. That is clear in my constituency of Dublin Mid-West. It is clear around the country. One solution to reduce costs is to give more incentives to purchase and use electric vehicles. Unfortunately, the grants are not enough. You can get them quite cheaply second hand. I have driven one for nearly ten years now and it saves an absolute fortune. However, there are people in new estates who cannot get proper parking and who are not allowed to charge using cheap home rates. That needs to be looked at.

M50 tolls need to be scrapped in areas where there is high congestion. In my constituency, there is a rat run down through Lucan and across the Liffey because of the toll heading towards Blanchardstown.

On the carbon tax debate, the Government is not doing enough and some Opposition parties are using it as a populist tool. To be clear, it is not about the carbon tax in itself but about how you use it. If it is applied fairly, it incentivises good environmental behaviour. We are facing massive fines down the road.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I am delighted to be able to speak on this motion on the costs of motoring. There is a fair dollop of hypocrisy in it when we talk about carbon tax because there were only a handful of us who opposed it when it was introduced here in a sneaky way that involved ten years of annual increases without ever coming back before the House. Sinn Féin and others wanted higher carbon taxes. That can never be forgotten.

Ar an gcéad dul síos, déanaim comhghairdeas le baile Chluain Meala agus leis an town bus, an bus baile. The TFI routes there do great work. The Clonmel town bus has been a major success but, as Deputy Healy said earlier, it needs to be extended, as I know it will, to Kilsheelan, Moyle Rovers and Ballyclerahan and out to the old bridge, the Raheen Road and parts of the town it does not service. There is also the bus ó Chontae Phort Láirge. It provides an excellent service freisin. It comes to Clonmel from Dungarvan four times a day. We are trying to get it to stop in Kilmanahan and Kilmacomma, which are both in County Waterford, but it is refusing to stop in those places. There is space. There is certainly loads of space in Kilmanahan. Kilmacomma is a big housing estate on the outskirts of Clonmel. Although it is in County Waterford, it is forgotten about in Port Láirge. They shop, go to school and do everything else in Clonmel so they need that connectivity. It is a great service and I salute the drivers. Everybody who uses it is very happy. It is an excellent service. That is good. I wanted to say that at the start.

The whole cost of insurance rip-off is a joke. It is not being dealt with. The insurance companies are taking us all for a ride. There have been different investigations and schemes but it gets worse and worse.

The driving licence issue is crazy as well. Although the waiting lists to get a driving test have improved slightly lately, it is just not good enough. The costs of the NCT and the CVRT are going up all the time. The roads are in a simply appalling condition in rural Ireland. It is fine to have the NCT when you are on tarmac surfaces in the cities, but you could damage your car on the way into the NCT.

On congestion on the M50, the costs are staggering. Deputy Tóibín put them on the record. Last year, €4.1 billion was raised in taxes on the fuel we need to go from A to B, to school, to the doctor, to work agus gach rud mar sin.

It is criminal to pay €1.4 billion in carbon tax. It is not going back into helping motorists. The toll companies are taking us for a ride. More increases are coming up again. They charge what they want. The M50 is a car park. I came through it one Sunday recently on the way to Monaghan and the traffic was at a standstill. It was the Sunday of the bank holiday weekend. I was very surprised. We need better planning there.

I wish to speak about the rail service from Limerick to Waterford. I use the train quite a bit to come to Dublin. There is a good service from Cahir but not enough trains, especially for return journeys. The train goes to Limerick Junction and then to Dublin. The line from Waterford to Limerick needs a major upgrade, and many more services with better connectivity. New routes have been announced, including a service every half hour from Thurles and Templemore. We need something like that in Limerick Junction. Connectivity from Cahir, Tipperary town, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir is needed. I did see planning permission this week, thankfully, for an upgrade to Clonmel railway station. I asked the Minister of State to come and visit when he was in Tipperary recently but he did not have time. Maybe he will come again. The railway station is closed to commuters on the train or on buses. There are no toilets or anything else. It is a shameful situation. People expect that after travelling for several hours on a bus they would be able to use the facilities at the train station. It is the same in Cahir, Carrick-on-Suir and Tipperary town. That is not acceptable in this day and age.

I also refer to the motorways, in particular the proposed M24 from Limerick to Waterford. Tipperary town is as bad as the M50 at times, as the parking situation is chronic and lorries go through the town. It is a major route from Foynes Port to Rosslare. We have to get it into the national development plan so that the footprint of that relief road will be built around Tipperary. We did it in Cashel. I was chair of the council up to 2004. Why can we not do it now? We should just build the road around Tipperary town. The route has been selected and there have been notices to treat and notices of getting ready. Why do we not do that in advance of the bigger project and relieve the town of Tipperary for the people to live, work and play? The fumes and noise are unhealthy, as well as the obvious delays with all the traffic bumper to bumper. That needs to be done.

As I outlined to the Minister of State already, this is a licence to print money. What kind of planning do we have in Departments if we signed up to these agreements to allow them to continue to be privately gouging motorists? Motorists are gouged every which way - the NCT, road tax, and insurance. Deputy O'Donoghue announced astounding figures for Tipperary. There was a difference of €900 for people in Tipperary. I hope there are not more people claiming in Tipperary. I would not think there is. We beat him this year in the hurling and maybe he is having a come-back at us for that one. We stopped them getting five in a row. Anyway, next year is another day. We need to look at that.

I, too, have had people come back from America and they cannot contribute to the economy here. They cannot go to work or to mass because they cannot get a licence. They left here and worked all their lives in America. They had licences to drive in New York and God knows what other places but they cannot drive here. We need to get with the picture here and get departmental officials to look at this. We are going to have to examine the working from home policy across all Departments. It is time this was stopped or sorted out because a fellow driving a machine or working in the county council or in many other jobs cannot work from home. We are going to have to be fair with people and pull our weight. We are falling behind. Denis O'Brien has said it and the Collison brothers said it recently. We need to be shipshape here and we are not.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am glad to get the opportunity to speak. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this motion before us this evening. Motoring costs affect every man, woman and child on the road. Kerry is a very diverse county with three peninsulas, and if you are going anywhere, it is a long journey. People cannot manage without a car because without one, they are marooned.

I will start off with the challenges young people face with the cost of driving tests, lessons and all the rest of it. They are doing everything right and then they are being robbed by insurance companies. We are all being robbed by insurance companies. Again, it comes down to the regulator. I do not know if we have a regulator. He is not transparent anyway. He cannot be seen or he has taken no action anywhere. At this stage, the only time we got value for the money we paid for insurance was when Seán Quinn was in the market. God be good to him wherever he is because he created competition, and he was wrongly blown out of it because there were too many against what he was able to do. I am sorry about what happened to him because we were able to afford insurance at that time.

The carbon tax was brought in to deter people from driving and to use other methods of transport. The remaining Green Party TD had the gall to start talking about the cost of motoring and insurance this evening. He forgot to tell anyone that it was he and his gang who orchestrated the carbon tax. They ensured that it was put in place for ten years by the last Government. At no time was I in favour of carbon tax. I am glad to see that more people are joining me against it now, although there was no account of them at the very beginning. It is very unfair. Coming up along the road this morning, I saw that fuel at the gas stations has gone up almost to €1.80 per litre and it is over that in many places. There is no need for an extra deterrent in the form of the carbon tax to try to deter people from driving because the fuel is dear enough since the Ukrainian war when it went up and there is no stopping it. It has gone up today and when we are going down tomorrow, it will have gone up again. There is no law or order in it.

When the cost of fuel goes up, the cost of ancillary things like batteries and tyres go up also. The cost of passing the NCT affects every man, woman and child. Some of our roads are not in a great state. The local authority and the Department are doing their best but, despite all their best efforts, we have inclement weather and rainwater on roads and they are constantly being damaged. Cars are affected and it is harder for them to pass the test.

Let us look at what it costs the transport industry to be on the road. Likewise, the cost of testing a lorry or bus is €3,000 or €4000 to do small things, just to keep them going. You would not make any wonder out of it. The cost of the fuel they must pay each day and tax is driving up the cost of living. Fuel is the main driver of the increase in the cost of living. I have no problem in the world in saying that. Is there any way that the carbon tax could be looked at because diesel, petrol and oil are dear enough without driving the cost up further with the carbon tax?

We are told that the money is being put into the retrofitting of houses. The Minister of State should tell that to some old person who has been waiting for two and a half years to get an answer back from the SEAI. It is only a joke. The SEAI must be made accountable. It does not answer the phone to any public representative, be it a Minister, TD or county councillor. It is not answerable to anyone. After two and a half years, the SEAI might come back and say a person will get this or they will not get that or whatever. That is not fair. That is not the way to run a country or a Department. It is very unfair what is happening with that money because it is not doing what it should be doing according to what the Government says it is doing. It is very disingenuous the way we are treating people on the road, young and old. They cannot come or go anywhere if they do not have a car, and it costs them the sun, moon and stars to keep it going.

There is a thing down in Killarney that we have been told has been wiped off the slate and there is no account of it. The railway station and the bus station are side by side. We asked for a bridge or other connection to link the two stations. Instead of that, when you get out of the train, you have to carry all your bags and baggage down past the Great Southern Hotel, out onto the East Avenue Road and up the street again to get to the bus. Likewise, if you get off the bus, it is totally and absolutely ridiculous to have to walk in the pouring rain - it rains a lot in Kerry. I am sad to say that we get more than our share. We believe we are being wronged there as well. I ask the Minister of State to put this back on the programme for delivery, because the people have been promised it. We are not in the 1900s now. We are in the 2000s. I ask the Minister of State to look at this favourably because it was in the pipeline and now there is no account in the world of it.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Could Deputy Healy-Rae slow down the bus please?

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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All right.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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9 o’clock

First, I want to confirm that the Government will be opposing this motion. I welcome the opportunity to respond to some of the issues raised in the debate on the motion put forward by Sinn Féin on the cost of motoring. Sinn Féin has expressed the view that the May and October 2025 carbon tax increases should be reversed with no further increases taking place. Sinn Féin also calls on the Government to not proceed with toll price increases and to abolish the motor tax surcharge for quarterly and biannual payments. The motion also calls on the Government to progress and enact Sinn Féin's Judicial Council (Amendment) Bill 2021.

I have noted the discussion this evening and want to respond by re-emphasising the Government's commitment to supporting households and business in a manner that is fiscally responsible and sustainable over the long term. In particular, the Government has striven to protect those most vulnerable to fuel poverty. This has been shown through successive budgets with targeted welfare interventions, as well as significant investment in the national retrofit programme. Crucially these interventions are funded by funds raised through the carbon tax rate increases.

Over recent decades, there have been transformative changes to the national road network, with an inter-urban motorway network now in place and many new road projects delivered. Just one example of this is the Dublin tunnel, which has successfully removed countless heavy goods vehicles off the streets of our capital each day, reducing congestion and improving air quality. This work continues, with construction under way on projects such as the N5 Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge, the M28 Cork to Ringaskiddy and the Adare bypass.

In addition, much work has taken place on our existing national road network to make it safer for all road users and reduce journeys. Toll revenue has played a major role in this and has contributed to the funding of essential services on the national primary and secondary road network across the country. Examples of these services include pavement repair and renewal, safety and junction improvements and safeguarding the network against the increasing impact of climate change.

There is no doubt but that people and businesses face challenges in regard to the cost of living. However, in the absence of toll revenue it would be necessary to meet the resulting shortfall through Exchequer funding. This ultimately would come from the taxpayer. Furthermore, with regard to the use of PPP contracts, I believe these have been instrumental in the rapid development of our road network and in particular, the motorway network. This has enabled the State to risk share with the private sector and avoid incurring upfront costs.

When the Government introduced the 2020 action plan for insurance reform, there was a recognition that deep structural issues were driving Irish premiums above international comparators. Legal costs were excessive, personal injury awards lacked consistency and transparency was poor. Through previous reforms, the Government has implemented fundamental changes, including the rebalancing of the duty of care, which adjusted liability expectations and reduced excessive claims; the reform of the Injuries Resolution Board, giving it a stronger mandate as an alternative to costly litigation; the introduction of the personal injuries guidelines, creating greater consistency and predictability in awards; and enhancements to the national claims information database, NCID, thereby transforming the availability of data about costs, premiums and settlements.

Premiums in Ireland have fallen by around 34% since 2016. Today, the average private motor premium is €623, compared with £777 in Britain and £834 in Northern Ireland. These differences matter. It represents a shield for households and businesses in a period when costs elsewhere in Europe were rising due to inflation and supply chain costs.

The effect of the personal injuries guidelines is having a positive impact on claim settlement procedures with 78% of all claims now being settled under the new guidelines. These structural reforms have provided a shielding effect and are preventing the effect of market pressures from being much worse. Without Government reforms, Irish motorists would now be paying dramatically higher premiums.

The latest NCID report demonstrates that the Injuries Resolution Board has an important role to play and continues to be the fastest and most cost-effective way of resolving personal injury claims. It achieves a comparable award for claimants in approximately half the time compared with litigation with significantly lower legal costs. By resolving cases outside the courts, it reduces both claim costs and settlement times, which should result in lower premiums and should benefit all policyholders.

High legal costs also remain a challenge and are impacting the cost of motor insurance. The implementation of further legal reform to strengthen the role of the Injuries Resolution Board and amend the Judicial Council Act 2019 to strengthen transparency and implement a robust process for the future review of the personal injuries guidelines are priority actions in the action plan to address further transparency and affordability of insurance.

The new action plan features ten priority actions that are focused on areas where the greatest impact on cost and availability can be achieved. They include a focus on transparency in the sector, legal reform, strengthening the powers and remit of the Injuries Resolution Board, a feasibility study on a cap for certain categories of personal injuries awards and measures to reduce both insurance fraud and the number of uninsured drivers.

The carbon tax is an integral part of the Government' s policy on climate change and supports a move away from fossil fuels in tandem with other policy measures such as the national retrofit programme and the electric vehicle supports. Importantly, the additional yield raised by carbon tax is ring-fenced for climate action and just transition measures. Budget 2026 provides for an allocation of over €1.1 billion towards such measures, which is an additional €163 million on the allocation for 2025's and of this sum, €350 million is allocated to targeted social protection interventions.

As of budget 2026, the Government has allocated over €4.2 billion in carbon tax revenue for climate action and just transition measures since 2020. ESRI analysis shows the lower income deciles are better off as a result of the social protection measures funded by the increased carbon tax. Analysis undertaken for budget 2026 using SWITCH, the ESRI tax and benefit model, to simulate the impact of the carbon tax increase and the compensatory welfare package estimates that the net impact of the combined measures is progressive. Half of households are better off due to the measures part-funded by additional carbon tax funds, with households in the bottom four income deciles benefiting the most.

I will conclude by stating the Government is at all times cognisant of the challenges facing households and businesses across the country in light of inflationary challenges. The Government has acted decisively and swiftly to provide supports over successive budgets. At the same time, we must be prepared for longer term challenges and make decisions which are fiscally prudent. As I have outlined above, the carbon tax is an important policy tool that supports decarbonisation of society. Revenues raised through increases in the carbon tax are allocated for expenditure related to the just transition and climate action measures. Analysis shows the overall policy to be progressive with the lower income deciles benefiting the most from revenue recycling.

As for insurance, I reiterate that the Government remains committed to achieving a competitive and sustainable insurance market in which insurance is affordable and available for everyone. A key focus of the new action plan on insurance reform is working with stakeholders, including insurers, to enhance transparency and promote affordability across all types of insurance. However, the Government is keenly aware of the impact of the cost of insurance on consumers. While the Government has delivered reforms that have reduced claims costs and provided insurers with more predictability, insurers have been slow to pass on savings to consumers. The Government will continue to regularly engage with industry to stress the Government's expectation that these cost savings achieved through the reform agenda are reflected in lower premiums and broader coverage availability for consumers.

Finally, turning to tolls and PPP projects, it is important to highlight again the ongoing improvements on our road network, which are necessary to support a growing population and economy. Total revenue has had an important role in funding such improvements as well as the improvements necessary to enhance road safety for all users. PPP contracts have been instrumental in the rapid development of our road network and in particular the motorway network. Accordingly, I do not accept the motion before the House.

Ann Graves (Dublin Fingal East, Sinn Fein)
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The cost of living is having a huge impact on workers and families. Every week, people are struggling to pay their bills, food, heating, childcare, fuel - the list goes on. In a recent budget, families were looking to the Government for a helping hand, but they got absolutely nothing. The ESRI confirmed that families will be 2% worse off as a result of the Government's budget. Families are now facing into Christmas in despair and drivers are being targeted with rocketing costs. People living in my constituency in Fingal East are getting a double hit because they do not have a sustainable public transport system. They are forced to use their car and they are punished with the ever-increasing cost of diesel, petrol, insurance and tolls, including the port tunnel, which we use regularly. The simple truth is that people, if they had a reliable bus, train and metro service, would leave their car at home and use public transport, but they do not. Now, Fingal County Council is reducing the R132 by a lane to facilitate metro, which we have been awaiting for 35 years and which will be very welcome when it comes. This is another plan that is going to impact badly on drivers. It will bring traffic to a standstill and it has to be deferred until the metro works start proper.

A young law student from Swords contacted me. She uses Dublin Bus to get to and from college. Her travel to college takes an hour, give or take about 15 minutes, in the mornings. In recent months, her travel time home from college has ranged from an hour and a half to two and a half hours. A resident living in Holywell trying to make the switch from car to public transport for his early commute has a persistent problem. By the time the buses arrive at his stop, they are already full. He said the situation has been recurring for so many years that it seems that most people just shrug their shoulders. They have given up on raising the issue because nothing will be done about it. Another constituent was in touch about the train service from Donabate. She said the current level of public transport is not sustainable or fit for purpose for a town with a rapidly increasing population, so it is simply not good enough.

My message to the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, who represents the people in Fingal East, as I do, is that he knows what the issues are. I call on him to deliver a sustainable transport system that is reliable, effective and affordable for the people in Fingal East. This will benefit the environment and put money back in people's pockets. I call on him to support the Sinn Féin motion. If the Government votes against this motion to support workers and companies who are struggling because of the costs that are being levied on them, shame on it.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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The crisis in the cost of living is out of control. Every day in this Chamber, the Opposition comes to the Government with solutions to the issues that people are facing every single day. People are having to choose between lighting and heating and are paying through the nose for insurance, toll costs and petrol and diesel. The Minister of State knows these issues are facing people. Tá a fhios aige faoi na fadhbanna atá acu. He knows the people are at the pin of their collar with inflation that the Government has failed to get under control. Sinn Féin has proposed ideas that would at least start to give people some respite from a never-ending slew of rip-offs in grocery, housing and car costs.

Our motion tonight is one of the many things that the Government could do right now to end this rip-off. The Minister of State has said that there are factors involved in the increase in toll fares that are out of his hands but this is not the case. The Minister for Transport, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has the power to stop this increase in toll prices. He could stop it tomorrow if he wanted to, but he does not want to and he does not stop it. Much like everything else with this Government, it is not a lack of ability but a lack of political will that has people facing this cost-of-living crisis. An Teachta Pearse Doherty has repeatedly told the Government how it could properly deal with the rip-off premiums that insurance companies are charging. We know that they are blaming false and exaggerated claims as a reason for hiking up their premiums. We know it is actually all about them protecting their massive profits. Just the other day, I was talking to a constituent, David from Celbridge, who had got in touch with me. He does not want me to mention his surname because he is worried his insurance will double again. He is aged 47 and his premium has gone up from €450 to €850 in the space of two years. He has had no accidents, he said, no claims, no points received in that time, yet he is having to face that kind of hike.

We cannot afford to continue without any action from the Government. I call on the Minister of State to act now. I thank An Teachta Daly for his motion. The Minister of State should support it, stop these proposed toll increases and stand up to the insurance companies to ensure fair and stable car insurance costs and address the disproportionate profits they are making.

Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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People in rural Ireland, such as in my own area of Wicklow-Wexford, need to use a car. They are particularly impacted by the rising cost of motoring. They are getting fleeced with fuel costs, rip-off insurance, which was just mentioned, parking charges and maintenance for service repairs including NCT, especially for those using rural back roads, which are in dire condition where I live. There are financing charges if they have a car loan, and then there is depreciation, with a car losing 15% to 35% of its value in the first year and 50% by year 3.

Do not get me started on Wexford rural roads. According to NOAC intercounty comparisons, Wexford has the worst rural secondary roads in Ireland. That has been the case for 30 years. There is an estimated shortfall of €60 million in Government funding and cuts over the past 15 years. Now, the engineers are saying we need a massive €194 million to bring them up to what engineers would class as an acceptable standard. On the way up to the inauguration yesterday morning, I hit a semi-pothole, a sort of a broken, jagged verge that had been covered in the rain. After that, I narrowly missed a car while trying to avoid another deep pool which could have been the same. These types of things are impacting hugely on people who live in rural Wexford and south Wicklow in terms of maintenance costs because they need to have a car in these rural areas. All of these are added costs. They include damage to rims, shocks, bushing and inner tie rods. I have become an expert in all these things with the amount I have had to pay out in the last few years. It is the same for lots of people I know. The gradient of the roads, the way they taper down to the verges, is putting strain on the steering systems. We have all of these technical extra costs, which people do not have in many other counties that do not have these road conditions. The Government has to address this, as the county council has repeatedly requested.

We in Sinn Féin in this motion call on the Government to stop the proposed toll increases, end the farcical penalty of having to pay motor tax in one single payment, deal with the insurance companies, reverse the carbon tax increase of October, and not to proceed with further increases, which are really fleecing people in rural Ireland.

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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If ever anybody in this State needed proof or evidence that the Government does not care about the cost-of-living crisis or the increased costs on motorists, they can see it in the Minister's own speech from earlier on. He said that this House should reject the Sinn Féin Private Members' motion and instead support the Government's countermotion on this matter. The Government did not even bother to lodge a countermotion. It is farcical in the replies the Minister gave earlier on that he mentioned he is aware that motorists are penalised in that if they cannot pay upfront, they pay an extra 5% in increments. He knows about it but is not doing anything about it except for a Bill that he is announcing some time in the new year. He knows as well that despite carbon tax increases not being effective because people have no choice in what they do, he is not going to reverse the carbon tax increases. The funny thing is that despite all the money paid in taxes, the Government is going to continue with the toll increases. The Government does not need to do this. It is mean and unfair. It is punishing commuters and people who have to go to school, college or the doctor's.

The biggest laugh of all is that in tackling the insurance cost, the Government argued that our Judicial Council (Amendment) Bill 2021 does not take into account the significant work undertaken by the Government. It is not working.

For 40 years, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been doing everything that the insurance companies want them to do, hoping against hope that motor premiums will reduce. When claims fell by 40%, premiums fell only by 5%. The Minister's statement goes on to say that it "could potentially undermine" the Government's efforts. It is hardly going to do that when the best that he could come up with was the introduction, sometime in the future, of a new code for insurance companies. This is not mandating them. Rather than bringing in legislation, it is bringing in a new code, to which it is hoped the insurance industry will sign up. The amount of leeway that is being given to insurance companies is laughable. What we propose is not radical. It is common sense. It is fairness. It is not left or right; it is what people need now. The Government should not hide behind excuses anymore or pretend that its hands are tied. It is sitting on its hands at the moment. It has the power to act against the rip-offs and against the cost-of-living increases but it is doing nothing about it.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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For clarification, the Government is opposing the motion. There was meant to be a countermotion but there were some issues about getting it onto the paper. I do not know what the confusion was but-----

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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They are trying to work out if half of Fianna Fáil are clapping for Micheál Martin or if it is all of them. It is nonsense that is going on here.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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We apologise for that. Anois, tá an t-am caite.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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In accordance with Standing Order 85(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time on Wednesday, 19 November 2025 - an tseachtain seo chugainn. I thank Deputies for their co-operation.