Energy and Fuel Costs: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-29 ============================================================ Joanne Collins (SF), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister of State. I too am delighted to get the opportunity to talk on fuel again. We did not table an amendment to the motion. The simple fact is I do not have time to write amendments that I know will get shot down every single time. We tabled a Private Members' motion on protecting rural Ireland and it was completely rewritten to take out everything that we called on Government to do. My time is better spent by arguing what I think should be in the motion. I had hoped that by bringing this forward a week before the budget, we would hear something and I am still hoping for that, not for me but for the 700,000 households that use kerosene to heat their homes. Those people have been telling me that they are not filling their tanks and are not buying kerosene in the hopes that next Tuesday they will get some kind of a relief. As others have said, a lot of these are older homes and older people. I know it is not freezing cold outside, but homes are cold especially in the evening and night time. Homes are getting cold and people are holding off. I really hope something comes for them. The motion calls on Government to continue support for households most exposed to fuel and electricity poverty. I am not sure what those supports are and if it refers to fuel supports or the fuel allowance. You cannot measure your success on standing up and saying that 25% of the households in this country get fuel allowance. I think that signifies failure more than success. If 25% of our households in this country are earning so little that they cannot afford fuel and need support, there is a serious failure in this country when it comes to fuel and the cost. The motion calls for an examination of "the impact of increased energy bills on elderly people living alone". It goes to show that the Government obviously is not listening to anybody. People have been shouting and screaming about kerosene, which has been increasing since last February with not one cent taken off the tax. Not one cent was taken off the carbon tax. We have been calling for it since last March - we have proposed eight different pieces of legislation - and never has one penny come off it. I can tell the Government that it does not need to examine any further. I am here to say there are serious issues when it comes to older people and heating their homes. The motion calls on the Government to continue to support the agriculture sector, fisheries and haulage. A rebate scheme was put in place last April after the fuel protests. That rebate scheme is not fit for purpose for a lot of these companies. It is heavy on administration. There were cut-off dates. Some were filling out the wrong forms. Small farmers and small contractors were afraid to fill out these forms to apply for fear they would get chased by Revenue. I am not for one minute saying they should not pay taxes on anything but I am just saying there are a lot of them. The Government knows that because a lot of them did not claim the supports and there was money left over. There are serious issues with the rebate schemes. The motion mentions the need to "update wind energy guidelines". I love that one because we are waiting about 20 years. There are wind energy guidelines and they are sitting there but I am assuming there is something in them the Government does not like, which is why they have not been brought out. There are all of these wind farms going to An Coimisiún Pleanála and going through judicial review because the communities do not want them there as they are too close. It is not just that. Some of them in County Limerick are even going against the guidelines that have been out since 2006 because the turbines are too close to each other. The Government talks about solar farms and wind turbines, but the grid cannot hold what is there. These companies are getting grants to put up their turbines and put in solar farms. They still get paid, even though they are not giving us electricity because the grid cannot hold it. We are dumping it. The everyday consumer is paying for this and paying to dump it, which makes no sense. Upgrade the grid first and then bring us the wind farms and solar farms, if that is what the Government wants. I say this every time we talk about energy. Shannon Foynes Port in County Limerick has a massive plan to install offshore wind that would sustain the entire country and a be a major exporter, but the Government started the DMAP on the east of the country, the opposite side to where Shannon is. That is another thing that could be looked at. The motion calls for continuing "engagement at an EU level to explore windfall tax". That is something for which we have been calling for a long time. It makes no sense that energy companies are earning millions every single year while people are in energy poverty. They need to be held to account and taxed correctly. People are told to get EVs because it will be cheaper and to charge them at night. The electricity companies came out last week or the week before with what I think was a 25% increase in night-time rates. Where do you win? You cannot win if you tell somebody to do something and then the energy company comes in and screws you on the other side. There is a lot of talk about replacing boilers. What are they going to be replaced with? You cannot put an air-to-water system into an old home because it is not airtight. You will just ramp up electricity bills even higher. There needs to be a proper transition. People are stuck on solid fuel and kerosene. They do not have a choice. It is the way the homes were built back then. They were not built for air-to-water systems as they are not airtight. You will lose energy that way. On carbon tax, I know the Government is saying there are rules. I am not expert on finance. I will put my hand up and say I do not understand what can and what cannot be taken off it. I know that the airlines are not charged and the private jets are not charged. Why is it on petrol, diesel and kerosene when you have private airlines and private jets coming in and out of this country that do not get charged carbon tax? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-09-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-29