Pearse Doherty: Surplus Not Spent, Families Left to Suffer

Go raibh maith agat, Ceann Comhairle. An teachtain seo d'an dara mhair o mi marta, Jimpion Commission Europe a Ar Bhailstedt ceimanna ar a bhfaim hon an brú o praise na leitrethas a luaidu. Agus, taiseabh go fóilíg dual tú rudda bí a ghennu chun codiú le gré a ghaoní a ta hís le bilí leitrethas aint a mór. Le bhaidh fíorinne phaidh, taiseabh geneir ruddaí níos mas a trí na crédsimus ffáinnú a bhont díra agus bhaidh daoine nais i chorin cis simplaí seo maith an Commission Europe a ghaoní pí oraibh gríbhú cean phaidh go fóilíg i ghennu rudda bí. Tánaise, this week, for the second time since March, the European Commission has urged Member States to come up with measures to ease the burden on electricity prices. And this morning, people are asking a very simple question. Have you been told to act? Why are you still standing back? Because the reality for families is stark. Electricity bills rising again. Heating costs are through the roof. Grocery prices up week after week. And households are being pushed to the pin of their collar just to get by. And Tánaise, here's the reality behind all of those bills. The Irish independent today talked to an 85-year-old man. He's from Belbrigan, 71 years working, and still he can't afford to retire. He works 15 hours a week just to keep his head above water. He sees it plainly. The state pension isn't enough to live on. After a lifetime of work, he's still paying for heat, for food, for insurance, everything rising. And he knows that if he stops working, he can't pay his bills. They spoke to another man. He's a farmer from Cork, Tánaise. He's in his 70s. He gets up every morning at 6 a.m. to go to work. Every single day. Not out of choice, but because costs have spiralled far beyond what the pension can cover. Heating up, fuel costs have doubled, the price of everything climbing up and up and up. And Tánaise, that is not how people imagined their later years. After a lifetime of contribution, they shouldn't be worrying about whether they can afford to heat their homes. But that's the human reality of this crisis. And what did you do? What did you do at the very moment people needed support? You took them away. Energy credits gone. Scrapped just when the pressure was intensifying. Scrapped just as households were already at breaking point. Tánaise, that decision is indefensible. Because at the very same time, we see this week your own economic spring forecast shows that the money is there. The reality is that a fraction of the surpluses would make a real difference for ordinary people's lives. And you have more than enough to act, more than enough to support households, more than enough to give people a real break. So this isn't about money. This is about political choices. It's you are choosing not to act. You're choosing to leave families exposed. You're choosing to let bills rise. You're choosing to tell people to wait. Wait for the budget. Wait till next year. Wait while the crisis deepens. But people cannot wait. Because the crisis is here right now. The bills are landing right now. The pressure on families is right now. Tánaise, these families need relief and they need it immediately. So I'm going to ask you, do you accept that your government got it wrong when you scrapped the energy credits that were so obviously needed? And will you now act to reintroduce those supports and bring forward an urgent cost of living package? Or are you going to continue to sit on billions in surplus while workers, families, pensioners and so many others across the state are pushed to the brink? Deputy Tánaiste, please. Well, go raibh maith agat. Thank you very much, Cian Corleone. Thank you, Deputy. Of course, the government didn't wait. The government brought forward objectively one of the largest packages of support in the European Union to assist our citizens. It's either the largest or the second largest package in the European Union, depending on how you look at it. And it's a package that's around two and a half times larger than the average package in the European Union. So while I welcome the European Commission's high-level proposals of yesterday as an important contribution to this discussion, we here in Ireland, in this Oireachtas and this government, did not wait for the European Commission to come up with a list of ideas. I do, though, welcome to your question the high-level proposals published yesterday. They are being discussed today, Cian Corleone, and indeed tomorrow, at a meeting of the European Council in Cyprus where our Taoiseach will represent the country. And I hope that does provide an opportunity to begin to put a bit of meat on the bones of further areas that the European Union can bring forward opportunities to act. I do welcome that in the proposals yesterday, they did reference the ability for a country to go beyond the Energy Tax Directive. Because you'll remember, I brought a financial resolution into this House where we went beyond the Energy Tax Directive on diesel. And I suppose on that occasion, we were doing so more getting ready to ask for forgiveness than permission. And I welcome the recognition from the Commission that they do need to give member states flexibility in relation to that. I also note their proposals say that measures should be targeted income measures. That's why we extended the fuel allowance. I welcome the fact that they say measures should be temporary, because I do think we have to stay agile and flexible during this crisis because it's hard to predict where the global economy will be in six weeks, let alone six months. And that's why our current measures run to the end of July. It says take action on excise as an option. And that's why we've cut the excise on diesel by 32 cents, petrol by 27 cents, and between the green diesel excise cut plus the support scheme, 27.5 cent on a litre of green diesel. And you are right, they do say that there are options that can be considered in relation to electricity. Now, I do note that they've said they'll soon adopt a legal proposal in relation to this, and Ireland will constructively engage on that. I think there's an interesting question, quite frankly, as to what more we can do around structural costs of electricity. And to give you a very example, I read the same articles you read today. We want to invest a lot more in upgrading our grid. We want to make sure that more electricity is produced from renewables. The question of how much of that comes on the household bill versus how much of that comes from the resources of the state is a really important and legitimate debate. We're already planning on spending 18 billion euro in relation to grid upgrade. Is there more that can be done in that space? And we'll work constructively at a European level. We have already acted on the VAT on electricity. You'll remember we've took the decision to extend the lowest rate of VAT that we can levy on electricity to 9%. That's been in place since 2022, but it's constantly kind of being rolled over. We took a decision early on to provide certainty that that would be in place until 2030. That measure's already come at a cost of about a billion euro as well. And let me just say this. We don't rule out taking further actions. Like, we don't. No government can. But I do have to say an energy crisis in the summer months is very different to the challenges that people could face in the winter months. And we have to make sure that we intervene, and we did intervene with the largest or second largest package in the European Union, but have an ability to intervene further. Because this crisis, Deputy, you know, I know, we all know, no matter what happens in Iran, the damage done now to the energy infrastructure means it will take a significant period of time to repair. And therefore, we have to be agile. And look, just on the point of the surplus, I mean, I'm very pleased that there is a surplus, by the way. It didn't come about by accident. It didn't fall from the sky. It's sensible pro-enterprise policies that this country has implemented. That means that we have a fiscal buffer built up. But the surplus isn't just sitting there idle. It's going into infrastructure. It's going into climate adaptation in terms of those funds. It's going into a future Ireland fund to meet, for example, the pension requirements. And it does provide us with options. Thanishe, you're still not listening. And you're trying to spin it, and you can spin it whatever way you want. But seeing people's real lived experience, they know where they're at. They see the prices going up. They see electricity going up, fuel prices, home heat and oil, groceries. They see all of that. And they see a government that's talking about the surpluses, billions of euro more than you expected, and you're refusing to act. You do not need the European Commission's approval to introduce energy credits. You withdrew those energy credits at the height of the winter. We told you what would happen. What happened, Simon? Never have we seen more people in the history of this state that can't pay their electricity bills. And on top of that, we have fuel prices increasing. We have groceries increasing. We have rents going up. We have insurance going up. We have student fees going up. It is never ending on families. And I'm telling you, what you need to do is act now. You need to bring forward an emergency cost of living package that supports families in the here and now. Because people can't wait for you to get your act together in the budget on October for measures to be implemented in January. People's bills are rising now. They're looking for help. They're looking for leadership. And you're continuing to give them the deaf ear. Tornister, please. Truthfully, Ken Corley, it's quite the opposite. We've already brought forward a package of €750 million. So that's the opposite of refusing to act. That is acting. That is concrete, meaningful action. And people see it at the pump. They know that the diesel price is lower than it was before that. Still too high, but they know it's lower. They know that the petrol price is lower than it was. The hauliers and their representative body have welcomed the package. The farmers and their representative body have welcomed the package. And we continue to work and engage with many stakeholders, including ICTU, IBEC, and many others as well. You should also acknowledge this point, Ken Corley, that never before in the history of the state have more people been in receipt of fuel allowance because we made a decision to expand it to 50,000 more low-income working families. But here's the difference between being in government and opposition. We can't come in here every Thursday and effectively propose that we do another budget. I want to make sure that we have options at budget time. We already took a very significant intervention. We stand ready to take further interventions. But we will not have the options we require as a country if we try and have a budget every Thursday.