Progressive taxes.

The Taoiseach knows that most working families are not in receipt of that.

I do not think the Minister of State really understands how hard people are hurting at the moment or how disgusted citizens of this country are about the damage being done to their lives by the tax policies of this Government with regard to fuel. I do not think the Government has an iota of understanding. This is one of the most disconnected governments from the real existence of so many people I have seen. There is a chasm between the Minister of State’s experience and that of teachers, nurses, doctors and gardaí …

The Omagh bomb was the deadliest atrocity of the Troubles in the North of Ireland. It was second only to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which killed more people in the seventies. On 15 August 1998 the Real IRA, a group opposed to the IRA ceasefire and to the Good Friday Agreement, killed 31 people, including two unborn children, and injured 220 others. Confused telephone warnings were made which did not specify the location of the bomb, and the police mistakenly moved people towards its location. The Real IRA de…

Families are being crushed by this energy crisis. Small businesses are going to the wall. Carers cannot drive to mind the older people they are looking after. Workers cannot fill their car tanks, even just to get to work, and farmers' costs are spiking at a time when their produce prices are falling. At the heart of this crisis are Government taxes, and no other political party is calling this out. For sure, the war in Iran has significantly accelerated the hardship, but the Government was already taking 60% to 65%…

Like many other Deputies in this Chamber, I am a cancer survivor. I am blessed to be six years cancer-free. When you have cancer, it is like an enormous cloud descends upon you and your family. The more important message to go out tonight is that if you get treatment fast, the sun will shine again and that cloud will lift from your family. Getting treatment is the key issue and the problem is the fact that where someone lives in Ireland determines whether he or she gets treatment in a timely fashion. There is a pos…

I want to just inject the voices of ordinary citizens into this debate, if I may. These are the voices of a nurse and a garda that were posted on social media today. The first one said: I am a nurse working in a Dublin hospital but I live in the midlands. I travel 100 km to work and 100 km home every day. We live in the midlands because we can't afford to live in Dublin but we really can't afford to live here either. We're barely surviving. Our main source of heat is oil. We ran out two weeks ago, we can't afford t…

I thank Independent Ireland for putting this motion to the House today. This is a very serious issue and one that we in Aontú have raised over and over again in this Chamber for many years. We believe that vulnerable children are being exposed to shocking danger by this Government and by a broken system over which the Minister presides. The figures speak for themselves. The national review panel presents incredible figures. It has indicated that between 2014 and February 2026, a total of 235 children died either in…

The past two weeks have seen a significant increase in fuel prices for families. It is now costing well over €100 to fill a tank of petrol or diesel for a normal family at the moment. That is absolutely scandalous. Incredibly, 65% of that cost is Government tax. Of the cost of petrol at the pumps currently, 65% is Government tax. This Government is an engine of fuel inflation in this country. This Government is pushing up the price of fuel now. Home heating oil is well on its way to costing €2,000. Again, it is the…

At the heart of this is a human tragedy. The response to a recent parliamentary question I submitted showed that in the last five years 126 individuals have been damaged up to and including permanent incapacity or death at CHI. A total of 752 other individuals have been damaged needing medical treatment. There have been 6,900 dangerous system failures within that organisation. Some 23,000 other incidents were reported in that period. The answer to another parliamentary question I put in recently showed that 525 sco…

-----but they are only starting now. They were promised to the families at the meeting-----

Okay. At the meeting the Minister had with the families along with Simon Harris, it was understood that the 16 weeks were going to come to an end roughly now and that is what the families understand, which is a problem. In 2014, Temple Street said it had 500 children with spina bifida in its care. Now CHI has 254 children in its care. I want the Minister to outline why that is the case. I do not want to take time from my colleague on that. It would be really important to have external oversight of CHI currently. Gi…

The cost of filling a car with petrol at the moment is €100. It is €19 above what was just five years ago. Some 60% of the cost of a litre of diesel is now tax, and 65% of the cost of a litre of petrol is now tax. This breaks down as follows: 54 cent in excise; 2 cent on the National Oil Reserve Agency, NORA; 16 cent on carbon tax; 8 cent on better energy tax; and 32 cent on VAT. Out of the €1.73 price for a litre of petrol, €1.13 is now Government tax. The Government is taking the majority of the cost of a litre o…

I have not said anything like that. The Taoiseach is arguing with someone else.

The Taoiseach is having a pretend discussion.

The Taoiseach often answers questions nobody has asked in this situation on weekly basis. It is like a pretend debate where he answers questions that nobody has actually posed to him at all and he ignores the questions that are specifically posed to him. We are not looking to decrease the tax base. We are asking him to stop increasing the carbon tax base. That is what the actual question was. Right now 300,000 people in arrears on electricity bills in this country. How does it make the Taoiseach feel that he has fa…

All I am asking the Taoiseach to do is to put a limit on carbon increases during this crisis.

I did, yes.

I need patience.

Three hundred thousand-----