Mary Lou McDonald: Govt Abandons 750,000 Heating Oil Households

He shook four weeks into a crisis that has seen fuel prices skyrocket and only now have you brought forward limited measures to respond. It's taken relentless pressure from Sinn Féin and massive public anger to force you to act. Because you watched on as fuel prices spun out of control. You sat back as working people struggled to heat their homes and to fill their cars. And when households needed a government of action, they got your do-nothing government. Clearly Taoiseach, your plan was to ride this one out. Your package today had to be dragged out of you. And still you come to the table with half measures. You couldn't bring yourself to provide the maximum support that people need. Taoiseach, your reductions in motor fuel don't go far enough. You have it in your power to deliver the maximum excise cut possible on diesel, a similar cut for petrol and to remove excise entirely from home heating oil. Motorists have been hammered for a month at the pumps and you could have done more. But instead you choose to shortchange people. However, your standout failure is on home heating oil. You have literally abandoned the 750,000 households that rely on home heating oil. The price of a fill of home heating oil has doubled in a matter of weeks. So a measly cut of 2 cent a litre is an insult. It amounts only to a 20 euro reduction on a fill that now costs around 1700 euros, a drop in the tank. And of course in any event, you'll take this back from people anyway when you hike up carbon tax in just a few weeks. So you give with one hand only to take back with the other. You could have and should completely remove excise on home heating oil. That would provide these households with the meaningful relief but instead you choose to leave them high and dry. And once again when it comes to the crunch, you sell working people short with weak half measures. But that's Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil all over. Your measure on fuel allowance is paltry Taoiseach. Extending the payment by four weeks won't make a dent in these massive fuel price hikes. Taoiseach, these soaring fuel prices are a real emergency for households requiring real action. Not the half measures that you present today. Are a real emergency for households requiring real action. Not the half measures that you present today. And we won't watch on as you let people down again. People who have to get to work at 1400 euros worse off in your budget. So we will move an amendment to your financial resolution to deliver the maximum excise cut possible for diesel, a similar cut for petrol, to completely remove excise and strip away carbon tax from home heating oil. And that's the difference Taoiseach between you and me. I believe that when families are to the pin of their collar and when government can intervene it should. No delays, no excuses, just action. Taoiseach to respond. It is a moment of great instability and uncertainty in the world. The war in the Middle East has created without question the greatest oil supply shock ever in the history of the markets. And that is a very sobering and significant reality that has to be taken on board by any responsible government. We have no intention of being reckless with this crisis or irresponsible with this crisis. We want to be flexible. We want to give supports to people. No government, every government is limited in terms of what it can do in situations like this. And all of the international advice from all of the ECB, IMF and so on is to target temporary affordable measures. Because we don't quite know what's around the corner in terms of how this unfolds. Both in terms of the war itself but also in terms of the Hormuz Strait, in terms of the impact on oil and gas installations that have already been destroyed where there will be a lag time now, a couple of years before some of those are restored to capacity. So the wise thing to do is to introduce measures of the kind we've introduced today that are targeted and that give some degree of universal supports in terms of the reduction in excise and petrol duties. And that's important. And then there's a very specific measure for the haulage industry, which you wouldn't support and you were warning us against doing yesterday. The reason we are doing that is the haulage industry is central to our trading and to our economy. Absolutely central. And it's extremely important that over the midterm that we make sure structurally that we create a sustainable haulage industry into the future to underpin what is a very strong exporting economy. And so those are the targeted nature of this. Fuel allowance has been extended for four weeks, which will take us up to the 1st of May. And I think any reasonable person would say that by that stage, yes, climate does change, weather changes and so on like that. We will be in a warmer situation. And that's a logical thing to do to target about 470,000 families who are on low incomes. I know you oppose that. You believe in really allocating about 2 to 3 billion right now. And what do we do in October? What do we do in December if the consequences of this crisis continue? We have a budget coming up. We want to protect investment for services in education and in health, in children, right across the board. And these are real choices we have to make. And I'm sure you must realize that yourself. I think it's probably one of the more generous packages being developed across Europe. And indeed, I don't know what instructions you've given to your own ministers in Northern Ireland. I think they're a total of £30 is the only benefit to upcoming bills that you're giving. You can't decide where an additional 17 million that is available is to go. So you have two ministers in charge of this brief in Northern Ireland. And I would just ask you, compare their performance to what we're doing here. It's no comparison. And poor enough leadership from your party who are in charge of that operation. But from our point of view, I think these are temporary measures. We do need to retain some degree of flexibility in terms of how this situation unfolds in the coming weeks and months. You know Taoiseach, you're always so shocked and so outraged when it's a case of families and working people needing support. That's such an outrageous thing to say. That's so unsustainable. It's always so unaffordable, even when the government coffers are full. Of course, you take a very different view when it's developers or big bankers or big, big corporate interests. Mind them every day of the week. But when the families come knocking on the door and when they're under pressure, that's a different story. How very, very telling. How very, very Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. It is not wise to leave 750,000 households who rely on home heating oil in the lurch. It is not wise to shortchange workers, carers, people who have to get out and about their business, families and people already who were to the pin of their collar in a cost-of-living crisis. Where is the wisdom of that? Not alone is it stingy and mean and detached. Above all else, it reveals your political priorities. And by God, it's not the working men and women of this country. With the greatest respect, the only party of late that has been courting bankers and developers in every sort of corporate financial operation is yourselves. Particularly in the United States, where you've raised a hell of a lot of money from developers and from builders. So really spare lecturing everybody else about fundraising from developers and bankers and everybody, because you've been doing it on a serial basis for many, many years in the United States and in Northern Ireland and in UK and elsewhere. And you speak out of both sides of your mouth when it comes to all of that playbook that you just regurgitate every time there's an event or a crisis in the world. And so we don't take your approach. And we do. That's what we're exactly doing here. We're targeting our measures on the fueler loans, which will help poorer families and low-income working families from the impact of the increases in home heating oil and in other energy products. And that has been our focus. And indeed, in the budget, it was our focus, where we had a very strong, and the SRI bears this out in terms of the low-income deciles, benefiting the most from, you're not leader yet, the deputy, I keep on saying you're not leader of the party, don't be interrupting, but the bottom line is, the evidence is there that we looked after, the lowest income groups, and through the household benefit scheme as well, which was substantially improved as a result of the budget.