Peadar Tóibín attacks the government over an 85% surge in home heating oil prices and accuses ministers of effectively tax gouging while families go cold. He challenged the Taoiseach in the Dáil over a two cent cut that he says is an insult and called for a cut to carbon tax on home heating oil.
Price shock and family impact
Peadar Tóibín details how the price of 1,000 litres of home heating oil jumped from about €950 in February to €1,750 this week, affecting roughly 2 million people who depend on oil. He shares testimony from a nurse who cannot afford to refuel and describes deep hardship in rural counties such as Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim where many homes have no grid connection.
Parliamentary challenge
Tóibín directly questions the Taoiseach’s policy response - notably a temporary two cent per litre cut and a planned later increase - calling it inadequate. He frames the issue as one of taxation policy as much as international supply shocks, urging a review of carbon tax on home heating oil and greater use of state resources to protect households.
Government reply and budget trade-offs
The Taoiseach responded by citing measures such as the fuel allowance extension and broader packages to ease costs, and defended keeping reserves for possible future emergencies and budget commitments. The exchange highlights a central political tension: how to balance immediate relief for households with funding for retrofitting, schools, health and other public services.
Consequences and questions ahead
Tóibín insists the current package falls short and argues the government must consider using existing revenues and windfall gains to reduce the burden on families now. The debate raises questions about short-term relief versus long-term energy policy, carbon taxation, and who bears the cost of an international energy shock.
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Go raibh míle maith agat, a ceann Comhairleach. Taoiseach, the price of home heating oil has shot up by 85% in recent weeks. Last month in February, the price of 1,000 litres of home heating oil was about €950. This week, it's retailing for €1,750. This country actually saw the biggest increase in home heating oil in the whole of the EU. Now, very few families have the colour of €1,750 lying around their house. Hard-working families, nurses, teachers, Gardaí, small business owners, they simply don't have that money available at any one time. One nurse contacted my office and said they haven't been able to refuel their particular home because of the price of it, and their family is simply going to bed early to keep warm at night time. She said that the family doesn't smoke, drink, they don't go out, they don't get takeaways. She said she's embarrassed because she can't afford the basic necessities now for her children at the moment. She's not alone. At the moment, about 2 million people across the country are dependent on home heating oil. In the likes of Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim, there's no connection at all to the national grid, and as a result, many of these homes are locked into that fuel source. So what Taoiseach, did you do for these families? You took two cents off a litre of home heating oil. In the jaws of an energy crisis, when home heating oil has increased at record levels, your amazing solution to this has been to drop a litre by two cents. So in other words, a fill has gone from €1,750 to €1,730. And incredible. I think it's an atrocious insult in actual fact to hard-working families in this country. An absolute disgrace. But it's not actually the full picture either here. Because in a few weeks' time, you plan to raise the price of a litre of home heating oil by two cents. So you seek, in the teeth of this hardship on families, the net results of your tax actions in a month will be actually to marginally increase the tax on home heating oil in this country. Now families are crushed by this energy crisis. Small businesses are going to the wall. Carers can't afford to drive to be able to mind the carers. Workers can't fill their tanks to be able to get to work. And farmers are actually seeing their costs spike while the price of their produce is actually falling. And your policy is to increase the net tax on home heating oil. And that's the problem here. The heart of this is your plan is to increase government taxes on fuel. For sure, the war in Iran has accelerated hardship on families. But your government was taking 65% out of a litre of petrol and diesel before the war. 320,000 families were in energy arrears before the war. The price of electricity in this country was at the highest in Europe before the war. The painful reality is you are tax gouging families. The question I have for you is will you cut carbon tax on home heating oil? First of all, your assessment is not correct in the sense that you ignored the extension of the fuel allowance for four weeks which would help about 470,000 people to deal with home heating oil rises. And there's no doubt there's huge pressure on families and people across the country. And home heating oil has increased very significantly because of the war. Not because of what the government did, but because of the war. And the supply shock that is occurring because of the closure of the Hormuz Strait and also the bombing of gas and oil installations in Iran and in the Gulf states. That's the fundamental cause of this current crisis. It still hasn't reached the levels that we reached at the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine when we also had an oil price and energy crisis in respect of pricing and so on like that. And government has to act. This is March, Deputy. We have another winter to come. We don't quite know what's around the corner in terms of what measures might be required from government in response to potentially a further deterioration in the future. Hopefully this war ends very quickly. It should end very quickly. That's what we want. But we don't know what's going to happen in respect of that. We also have to prepare for a budget and keep our resources in reserve. Now I know you're against the carbon tax in total. I think you would abolish it in total. Yeah, you would. No, I think you would. I just want to make the point that honesty is what we want here because you're talking about a billion. So you'd have to find a billion euros to do what you want us to do. And that means taking money from farmers. It means taking money from the retrofitting program because we wouldn't be able to do the retrofitting program without it. And the retrofitting program helps people to reduce their costs over time. And it's a far more effective energy efficient approach to the allocation of resources. About 173 million this year will come from that fund and go to farmers across the country. And the opposition will say, look, don't do that, but find the money elsewhere. And then we have to try and invest in education, health, children, disability for the next budget. And we want to both maintain existing levels of public service but also increase. This morning we announced the DESH Plus scheme, which is further allocation of resources to those most in need in schools with huge challenges across the country. About 120 schools plus more homeschooling. So we want to keep a reserve to make sure we improve services for everybody in the country and for the people more generally. The allocation is about 250 million. It's probably the largest package across Europe. And the fuel allowance, I think, is a good targeted measure that helps about 470,000 families, which will help them with their home heating oil expenses. And then the general reduction in petrol and diesel will help families everywhere across the length and breadth of the country. And the reduction in the oil levy. So you can't just isolate one from the other. It will all help to some degree. First of all, working families don't get the fuel allowance. So the working families that I'm talking about, the people who are actually in energy crisis at the moment, are actually suffering significantly in relation to this. Second of all, your taxes, amazingly, because the war in Iran is a shocking situation. It has had an enormous effect on the price of fuel. But your taxes have a larger effect on the price of fuel. 65%, the majority of the price of diesel, are your taxes at the moment. And you talk about your 235 million euro package. Look at it like this Taoiseach. You've actually taken extra taxes, about 140 million in extra taxes, because of that going up on the higher prices in the last four weeks. And your carbon taxes will take an extra 160 million in the rest of the year. Put the two of them together, and actually your package is smaller than the extra taxes that you're going to take this year. That's an incredible situation. You don't need the carbon taxes at the moment to retrofit. You squirreled away 10 billion euros in extra windfall taxes last year. You could actually use some of that money to actually invest in retrofitting in this homes. To bring down the cost of deep retrofitting from the 40 grand to a lower cost so people can actually afford it. Thank you Taoiseach. Deputy, first of all, you're wrong in that assessment. In terms of your assessment of savings, or whatever, that's the government, or increased revenue. Absolutely wrong. But you're raising the general issue of taxation overall. No, you can't have it both ways. What you're really advocating for is a cut in public services. Of course you are. Because if you reduce taxes on one front, you're reducing your revenue and your resources to pay for public services and education and health. Sorry, but they're a revenue source. So you either increase income taxes, what you're saying, or increase taxes elsewhere. Tell us what you do to offset the elimination or the significant reduction in excise duties that you're proposing. Because you'll have to find the money from somewhere, Deputy. We can't have everything we want, or cake and eat it and so on, which seems to be your response. What the government is doing is targeting its resources. 50,000 extra working families on the working family payment are now in receipt of the Fula loans. We brought that in in the last budget. And they will now be part of the extension of the Fula loans for families. So you're wrong in saying that working families will not benefit from that. Thank you Taoiseach, your time is up.
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