Mattie McGrath: Government's £3.75bn Energy Tax 'Highway Robbery'

Is your Government trying to address the cost of living crisis? Are you trying to bankrupt the public? As far as I can see, and most people can see, it is the latter. The facts which have been confirmed to me by a parliamentary question from the Minister of Finance show that your Government collected a record £3.75 billion in energy taxes last year. Meanwhile, during that same period, the Government gave out minimal energy reliefs. Yesterday, the Government's decision to extend the minimum excess reliefs was like throwing breadcrumbs out to a clock of crows after starving people. It is not enough, Taoiseach. We need relief from those punitive taxes that are crippling our public. The figures exposed the Government's exploitation of our citizens and the energy prices crisis. The Government is gaining profits from the difficulties of the ordinary people to, as I said, criminal taxes. The plain facts of the matter are that this Government's energy tax policies are nothing but a highway robbery. They are taken from the poor and given to yourselves to your own coffers to give out this, that and the other. Last year, the Government collected a record £3.75 billion in energy taxes, representing an increase of nearly £500 million or 15 per cent from the previous year. That is staggering figures in the middle of a cost of living crisis. It gets even worse when you consider carbon tax and energy income, which surged by almost 31 per cent, increasing from £1.681 billion in 2021 to £2.196 billion in 2022. The figures are there. They are the Department of Finance figures supplied by Minister McGrath's department. It is, as I said, almost criminal to raise VAT and carbon tax revenues from fuel industry during the cost of living crisis. People have to eat their homes and have to try and get to work and keep the wheels of industry going as well. That is why our group, the Rural Independent, submitted a Dáil motion last year with your Government. It was to have zero VAT and carbon tax until this cost of living crisis was past it. It was like Pontius Pilate and Good Friday. You just voted it down. Fine Gael, Fine Fáil, Greens and indeed some independents. As I said, this Government has been prioritising the wellbeing of the Irish people, it says. But you think the people are ATM machines, that you can reach in and put in the care and take more and more and more. But I can tell you, teachers, they have no more to give. They are in suffering, they are in agony. They are trying to put their clothes on their children's backs and feed them and send them to school. And you keep hitting the weakest and the lows. And the ordinary working families, the ordinary small businesses, they are completely crucified and they get nothing from you. Only you are going to go back up in October to the full taxation on all these energy crises, whether it is for diesel or petrol or anything else, home heating oil or agri-fuel or anything else. More punitive suffering. Thanks, Deputy. Thanks, Deputy. At the outset, I just want to say once again that the Government appreciates that the cost of living is very high, that inflation remains high and the prices are still rising. And we understand that the high cost of living is hurting people, hurting families and making it very hard for a lot of businesses to operate in the State. This is driven largely by factors outside of our control. Of course, we would like to see energy prices being much lower. But we are a price taker when it comes to electricity and gas and petrol and diesel, almost all imported, almost all from abroad. And prices driven up internationally by a number of factors, not least the war in Ukraine, but other factors as well. We are acting to help. 600 euros taken off people's bills in the form of the electricity energy credit. 200 euros still to come off people's bills, which will arrive in March and April. The 9% VAT rate, the lowest VAT rate we have ever had on electricity and gas, announced yesterday that we are going to extend it until the end of October. We have reduced the excise on both petrol and diesel. It was due to go up at the end of the month. We have announced now that it will not even start going up until June. And we also announced yesterday that we would improve the TBEST scheme so that more businesses would qualify, that they would qualify for more financial support and that it would be back dated to September. And I think, as somebody who represents a rural constituency, I know you will welcome the fact that there would now be a new grant scheme for businesses that are not on the gas network and use LPG and use kerosene instead. And Minister Coveney is putting together that scheme as we speak. There will be debate on this and there will be a vote in the Dáil on this. And the vote will be to extend the VAT 9% until the end of October and to not put up the cost of petrol and diesel at the end of this month. And I hope you will vote with the Government on that. Prime Minister Coveney is too restrictive, the first one. Way too restrictive a person on anything else other than town gas could not claim for it. I do welcome the VAT and the hospitality. Of course I do. But I do not welcome that you are saying you are starting until June, putting back up or taking off the excise again, charging people extra for fuel. You are playing a three-car trick here. The cost of wholesale oil at the moment is lower than it was at the pre-war. You blame the war for everything. So stop the blame game there. It is your punitive taxes that are causing the price of oil. Nothing else. International factors. Every other country, I can quote a list of them here, in Europe, have had a windfall taxes. You refuse to do so. You do everything for the corporate, big people, but nothing for the D&B, the small people, the little people. Because your party is not interested in them and never was. And it is shameful that you can quote those figures libly here. We welcome bits and pieces. But you have a lucky bag here. If you do not vote for parts of you, you will not get the rest. A lucky dip, Murray. And threatens not to vote for it. Your carbon tax last year put €160 on every man, woman and child in this country. This year it is going to put over €180 and €210 next year. Every man, woman and child. That is what you are doing to help the people. You are robbing him first and pleasing him, and not throwing back crumbs at the end. It is a mockery. There are a number of different factors at play when it comes to the price of fuel. But it is just not correct to say that international factors have nothing to do with it and that it is all about tax. That is demonstrably not the case. Just go north of the border and look at the price of petrol and diesel there. Go to the UK. Go to most parts of Western Europe. Maybe not all parts of Europe, but certainly go to most parts of Western Europe and see what the price is in the Netherlands or Denmark or Germany. This is absolutely driven by international factors and we are price takers in that regard. Tax is, yes, an element of it. We have taxes for a reason. They pay for education. They pay for healthcare. They pay for pensions. They pay for housing. They pay for all those things that we need. That is why we have taxes. And also when you look at something like the price of a barrel of oil, for example, you need to bear in mind currency movements. Oil tends to be priced in dollars. Sometimes North Sea Brent crude is priced in sterling. If the euro is weaker than currencies, that also impacts on the factory. You cannot just look at the price of oil. You have to look at that too. In relation to the carbon tax, I stand over the carbon tax. The carbon tax is ring-fenced and given back to people in the form of retrofitting, in the form of green schemes for farmers. It is done for that particular purpose. Thank you very much.