Ken O'Flynn: Abolish USC, Lift Energy Ban Now
Ken O'Flynn addresses the chamber on the cost-of-living crisis and proposes two immediate remedies: abolish the Universal Social Charge (USC) and lift the ban on oil and gas exploration to secure energy supplies. He challenges government spending priorities and argues energy security is national security.
Ken O'Flynn outlines rising household costs - groceries, energy and rent - and argues that current government policy has treated citizens' wallets as an easy target. He praises Aontú's motion as rooted in genuine concern but warns that correct diagnoses must be followed by correct prescriptions.
O'Flynn criticises the Universal Social Charge, introduced in 2011, as a permanent emergency tax that hits every euro and disproportionately burdens workers and the self-employed. He calls for outright abolition rather than small tweaks, saying abolition would deliver weekly relief to nurses, electricians and shop assistants.
He rejects funding tax relief by taxing workers and points to large projects and cost overruns - including Metrolink and the children's hospital - as sources of wasteful spending that could be reprioritised to fund relief for households.
O'Flynn highlights the 2021 ban on new oil and gas exploration and warns of growing gas imports and lack of storage. He argues for reopening exploration as part of a realistic transition, saying renewable energy is important but will not immediately displace fossil-fuel dependence.
He frames energy policy as a matter of national security and urges a shift in priorities: end avoidable domestic waste, return more income to workers, and secure domestic energy options to reduce dependency on imports.
Main argument: Household pressure and policy failure
Ken O'Flynn outlines rising household costs - groceries, energy and rent - and argues that current government policy has treated citizens' wallets as an easy target. He praises Aontú's motion as rooted in genuine concern but warns that correct diagnoses must be followed by correct prescriptions.
Tax policy: Abolish the USC
O'Flynn criticises the Universal Social Charge, introduced in 2011, as a permanent emergency tax that hits every euro and disproportionately burdens workers and the self-employed. He calls for outright abolition rather than small tweaks, saying abolition would deliver weekly relief to nurses, electricians and shop assistants.
Public spending: Where the money should come from
He rejects funding tax relief by taxing workers and points to large projects and cost overruns - including Metrolink and the children's hospital - as sources of wasteful spending that could be reprioritised to fund relief for households.
Energy policy: Lift the exploration ban
O'Flynn highlights the 2021 ban on new oil and gas exploration and warns of growing gas imports and lack of storage. He argues for reopening exploration as part of a realistic transition, saying renewable energy is important but will not immediately displace fossil-fuel dependence.
Consequences: Energy and national security
He frames energy policy as a matter of national security and urges a shift in priorities: end avoidable domestic waste, return more income to workers, and secure domestic energy options to reduce dependency on imports.
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Transcript
Thank you, Comhairle. Let me begin by acknowledging Aontú's tabling of this motion in good faith and in the names of crisis that is really biting every man, woman and child in this country. Families with two incomes are working harder than their parents ever did before and having to show less for it. Grocery bills up 40%, energy bills nearly 60%, rent at a level that is now unthinkable 10 years ago. The diagnosis as much of this motion is correct but the correct diagnosis followed by the wrong prescription does not cure the patient, Minister. Minister, the hard truth that this house must face is that the policies brought to us into this mess are the wrong ones to sort it out. For 15 years we have been governed by an economic instinct that treats the citizen's wallet as the state's first resort and last reserve. Tax it, levy it, surcharge it, toll it and then families buckle under it and we scratch our head and wonder why and we offer them a one-off cheque for Christmas and call it some sort of compensation. But that is not compensation, it is a government picking your pockets and handing you back the bus fare and that's what the government has done in this country on a regular basis. So let me offer two solutions to get to the root of this symptom. The first is a universal social charge. The USC was introduced in 2011 at an emergency measure brought in from the wrecking and crashing of this economy by the Fianna Fáil administration, sold to this country as temporary. 15 years later the emergency is well and truly over but the tax remains. It is the most cynical levy of our system because the tax credit cannot touch it. It charges it at almost the top gross income on the first euro. A worker earning 50,000 euros hands over over a thousand euros in USC charge alone. The self-employed, the self-employed who are the drivers of our economy, that take the risks, that create jobs, that when something happens to them and they go sick they're not entitled to any social welfare, they're taxed at a rate of 11% on top. Independent Ireland's answer is plain. Abolish the USC charge. Not tinker with a tax band or two, don't shave half a percent off a little rate here and there and issue a press release. Abolish the universal social charge and let every worker in this country keep what they earn. That's a real payment structure relief. Money in the pocket of every nurse, every electrician, every shop assistant, every week of this year. And those in this house that will ask how do you how do you pay for that? Well look at your own motions, look at the things that have been brought to this house. Metrolink costing 15.8 billion, a children's hospital that has quadrupled in cost to 5 billion and in overruns since 2023. You do not fund a tax cut on the back of workers, Minister. You fund them by ending wasteful spending, something that you're very good at doing in this government. The second solution is energy and you mentioned that yourself. And here's the contradiction, Minister, that you failed to mention. The Irish policy laid before us. We have some of the highest electricity prices in Europe. And what did the government do? In 2021 your government legislated a ban on all new oil and gas exploration in our Irish waters. It chose deliberately to keep the resources in the ground. We're aware that the Carrobor oil field is running dry. By 2030 the government's own figures have told us that the country will import over 90% of gas. Almost all down pipelines from the United Kingdom. And with only a handful of the EU states, we're one of those that has no gas storage of its own. And yet we talk about, you're talking about renewable energies, Minister, and how important they are. Nobody on this side of the house and certainly in independent Ireland objects to renewable energies. But we realise the importance and we realise the reality and we realise that we're going to be dependent on fossil fuels for another 20, 30, 40 years. Because we can face the facts and we can deal in reality, unlike yourselves. And you chose not to open Barryrow, not to explore Barryrow, knowing that there's a hundreds of thousands, a hundreds of millions barrels of oil, but you won't even allow the exploration of it. You've chosen not to look at it. You're importing, you intend to import energy from France and from Spain. And what is it? That's not renewable energy. You know that as well as I do, but you're denying, you're denying that. And your, your environmental policy is dressed up as virtue. That's the reality of it. And you can talk and you can virtual signal about renewable energies all you want. And nobody's objecting to that, but you have to realise that there are other energies as well that we are heavily dependent on in this country. What I would say to you is that you have to lift the ban. You have to look at our energy security because energy security is not, is national security. Thank you.