Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-25
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Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West

First, working families do not get the fuel allowance. The working families that I am talking about who are in energy crisis at the moment are suffering significantly from this. Second, the war in Iran is a shocking situation, which has had an enormous effect on the price of fuel but Government taxes have a larger effect on the price of fuel. The majority of the price of diesel, 65%, comes from taxes at the moment. The Taoiseach spoke about the Government’s €250 million package. He should look at it like this. The Government has actually taken in about €140 million in extra taxes because of VAT going up on the higher prices in the past four weeks. Carbon taxes will take in an extra €160 million over the rest of the year. When the two are put together, the Government’s package is smaller than the extra taxes it will take this year. That is an incredible situation. It does not need the carbon taxes at the moment to retrofit. It squirrelled away €10 billion in windfall taxes last year. The Government could use some of that money to invest in retrofitting homes to bring down the cost of deep retrofitting from €40,000 to a lower amount so that people could actually afford it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:47+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-25