National Oil Reserves Agency (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-25
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Eoin Hayes (SD), Dublin Bay South

Politics, for better or worse, has made me occasionally suspicious of things. When things happen suddenly or without warning, I wonder what exactly is happening. I am a bit of a nerd, I have to admit. I like maths, numbers and researching things I am interested in. After a few hours of researching this amendment and looking at the Bill, I find what the Government is doing deeply troubling. I want to be really clear here. We in the Social Democrats have supported the Government on reductions in excise and on relief for hauliers. We are even willing to support half of this Bill to relieve two months of the levy. However, it turns out this Bill also authorises something the Minister did not acknowledge in his opening remarks. I am severely disappointed by the lack of transparency from the Minister, his Department and the Government. What he is proposing is the authorisation of a 20-month raiding of the climate action fund. That is what this Bill does. It would be better called the climate action fund reversal Bill.
I will take Deputies through how I came across this. It was deliberately obfuscated from the Dáil.

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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