Mary Lou McDonald: Taoiseach Abandoned 750,000 Home Heating Households

Magaith Ciann Comhairle, and can we welcome three people, Reverend Karen Sutherman and Beryn Collins and Clare Mitchell who gave a fascinating presentation today on Protestant perspectives on constitutional change, so you're very very welcome here today. Taoiseach, the measures you brought forward yesterday to address soaring fuel prices aren't good enough. You've shortchanged working people, people with little or no support working every hour that God sends and still struggling to get by. You shortchanged them on diesel, you shortchanged them on petrol, and you completely abandoned the 750,000 households who rely on home heating oil. Most of these families don't receive the fuel allowance. They've seen the price of home heating oil double in a matter of weeks and what was your offer to them? Well, a two cent reduction per litre, a lousy 20 euros, all for fill of oil that has skyrocketed to around 1,700 euros. That's what families are dealing with in the here and now. Now that took some neck Taoiseach, and all the more so given that this lousy 20 euros will be taken back when you increase carbon taxes in a couple of weeks. Last night you had the opportunity to change course, to do right by these households, but instead you dug in. Sinn Féin proposed an amendment to your financial resolution that would give proper relief on petrol and diesel, to completely remove excise and strip carbon tax from home heating oil, but you voted that solution down. You wouldn't budge. Clearly households being able to afford to heat their homes is not a priority for Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil. Your actions yesterday revealed your true priorities and for all the lip service, for all the tea and sympathy, yesterday you had a real chance to make a big difference for hundreds of thousands of households hammered by soaring prices and you chose to leave them behind. Previously Taoiseach I have told you about a 94 year old woman on a fixed income whose heating oil bill doubled in days. Her face now with paying an extortionate bill are going cold. I've also told you about the mother who received a quote for her fill of oil and didn't know if she'd have enough money left to get that week's shopping. These are the people that you've abandoned and what have you to say to them today Taoiseach? Because yesterday you told them that they were on their own. Remember almost half a million households already couldn't afford electricity or gas bills and yet with your eyes wide open you will push many households who rely on home heating oil into desperate situations. More stress, more pressure, more hardship. Tá teálaí a bhreithain ar ráidh chasad trí trécha ag Fianna Fáil agus Fianna Gael. D'fháiltú na teálaí seo i grúa chos gan ein ffaoiseabh. Níol sé maith go lor. Taoiseach, households who rely on home heating oil matter. They need support but you've thrown them under the bus. How could you think it's good enough to treat these families in this way? Because it's not right, it's not fair and Sinn Féin had provided you with the solution to completely remove excise duties, strip out carbon tax from home heating oil. That's what you should do Taoiseach, to give these families real relief because you cannot leave them on their own. I disagree fundamentally with the Deputy in her assessment. I mean the bottom line is Sinn Féin voted against a reduction in diesel of 20 cent per litre last evening. Sinn Féin voted against a 15% reduction in petrol and a 3 cent per litre reduction in green diesel and also voted against the Nora Levy, also our will, in terms of your commitment. You did vote against it last evening, you voted against the reduction and if you had won last night there'd be no reductions at all today. That's a logical conclusion of your position and no attempt this morning is going to change that fact. We put forward measures last evening by resolution to reduce the cost of petrol and diesel and you opposed it and voted against it. That was a wrong thing to do. And it sums up your approach because in Northern Ireland you can't make up your mind and two Sinn Féin ministers are in charge of this area. Absolute absence of any decision making, absence of any clarity, you can't make up your mind how to allocate the money to help people in Northern Ireland. Pathetic, absolutely pathetic and you blame somebody else of course which you always do. The bottom line there is a war which is having enormous implications for energy supply. It's well documented. No government in the world can compensate every single person in society as a result of that war. All of the advice is you target resources that you're allocating to a crisis of this kind, that are temporary measures and also that we keep in mind that things could get worse over the next number of months. And that we do need to hold in reserve our resources both for the budget for next year and for making sure we maintain investment in services like education and health. But we do our best now in terms of easing the pressure on people and the fuel allowance, extending it by four weeks, enables us to reduce the pressure on working families. And up to 470,000 families will benefit from that extension over four weeks of the fuel allowance. And most people will benefit also from the reduction in diesel and in petrol that you voted against and opposed. And people will benefit from the NORA levy also. But in the broader area of course in the last budget we increased way above inflation social protection measures, pensions and indeed the household benefits package quite substantially. Now you keep on talking about the carbon tax and God knows over the last number of years it's incredibly difficult to find out where Sinn Féin stands in the carbon tax. Because every year when we do a budget you do your alternative budget. And what's in your alternative budget? All the revenue from carbon tax. So when it suits you for performative and demonstrative purposes such as this crisis you suddenly wheel out your supposed opposition to the carbon tax. When it comes to the budget next October you'll have a budget alternative to ours and you'll include carbon tax revenue. You are so hypocritical about it. And it's the damage that you would do. Because the carbon tax is essential in terms of guaranteed ring fence funding for retrofitting of homes, for the warmer homes initiative, for the retrofitting of local authority housing. All of which helps working people permanently reduce their bills into the future. This year alone £173 million will be allocated out of that fund to farmers on environmental farming schemes and the Acres programme which is 60% funded by the government. Well the reality is that we have no money and you're not listening to us. We couldn't be clearer in our position, for the avoidance of any confusion, your half-baked measures aren't enough. We will not support measures that leave 750,000 households high and dry. They're real people Taoiseach, real families who today now worry how do they pay their home heating bill. And you've no answer for them. We had the answer. We provided you with the opportunity to do the right thing and yet you failed to do so. And we see a rerun of your politics again for all the owl guff and your performative efforts. You don't care about working people. Your budget that you spoke about, you spent 9 billion euros and not a shilling for working people. Not a shilling for people who don't get supports that you claim. They have been left again high and dry and I want to put it to you again. We've given you a specific measure in respect of home heating that affects hundreds of thousands of households. At this stage I ask you again, adopt our proposal, adopt the Sinn Féin solution and give these families the relief and support they deserve. Sinn Féin's solution is billions and billions and billions and more billions every month of the year. No matter what crisis arises, throw billions at it. That is your response. You have no substance as a party, absolutely none now. Because depending on whatever issue arises, you just throw money at it. That's the answer to it. And that's the incoherence of your response actually as a party. Hopelessly incoherent, no substance to your policy, no clarity and absence of any decision making capacity as demonstrated by your party in Northern Ireland. And you control it all. You've made that very clear. And that's exactly what happens. You blame somebody else. And that is the position of Sinn Féin and has been during the Ukrainian crisis. Likewise you had a similar destructive approach also. We have come forward with a package last evening which will reduce petrol and you voted against it. You voted against the reduction in diesel and in petrol which is quite extraordinary.