National Oil Reserves Agency (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-03-25 ============================================================ Jennifer Whitmore (SD), Wicklow I will return later in my contribution to the aspects of the debate my party colleague has raised. The 2 cent reduction in the NORA levy is a drop in the ocean for homeowners and householders who are relying on home heating oil, the hundreds of thousands of people who are not going to benefit from the excise cuts, which the Social Democrats supported, and the people who will continue to find it very difficult to put a half-fill or a fill of oil in their tanks. The Social Democrats have repeatedly acknowledged that we are in the middle of a crisis that will require emergency-type solutions in the short term that can offer some level of respite to people. This reduction of 2 cent is the absolute bare minimum and it really will not make much difference to people. Instead, what the Minister should have done is target the use of public money to support people who are most in need. We have repeatedly asked him to bring in a €400 electricity credit targeted at the people in the lowest 40% of the income distribution. That would assist 800,000 people in this country with their energy bills. We are not calling for a broad-brush energy credit because that would not be targeted. This was consistently our position in the previous Dáil. There is a huge wastage of public money in the non-targeting of such measures. The best, simplest and quickest way to assist every person who is really suffering from the high cost of electricity and gas following the Ukraine crisis, and now the high cost of petrol, diesel and home heating oil as a result of the current war, is to provide a targeted energy support. It is unfortunate that the Government has not done so. We in the Social Democrats hope that at some stage in the very near future it will bring forward that energy credit. This crisis did not start four weeks ago. There are many people still trying to recover from the impact of the high energy costs incurred as a result of the Ukraine crisis. The ESRI has advised against the approach of introducing measures that are not targeted. It has shown that the last time this approach was used, 50% of the cost of the measure went to the top 40% of households. The statistics are there to show this is not the best way to deal with these issues. A targeted approach is certainly the preference of the Social Democrats. In the absence of that, we have supported the excise reduction and we will support the 2 cent reduction in the NORA levy. However, as my party colleague has stated, we have concerns about this Bill. It is much more far-reaching than what was originally proposed, which was just a two-month cut. The Social Democrats have consistently supported carbon tax because we understand we need to move away from fossil fuels and fossil fuel subsidies and ensure people who are least able to do so can transition away from those fuels. The revenue collected from carbon tax offered the Government an opportunity to ensure a just transition. There was a chance to use that money to ensure lower income families can have warm homes, lower energy costs and an opportunity to avail of solar panels and electric cars. These are the changes we all need to make but lower income families will find it much more challenging to do so. That is why the Social Democrats have always supported carbon tax. However, I find it bizarre that at the same time the Government is being critical of Sinn Féin for not supporting the carbon tax on the basis that the money is ring-fenced and will go to energy and climate action measures, it is, in essence, doing the exact same thing with the NORA fund. It is just called something different. A lot of people do not understand where the money from the NORA levy goes and for what it is used. The Government is using that to its advantage and is really just playing with words here. It is incredibly disappointing that the Bill includes a mechanism for ministerial discretion to extend these provisions for 18 months. The climate action fund plays an incredibly important role in supporting communities, small businesses, households and the public service to implement climate action measures. The ESB availed of the climate action fund to put in charging stations all across the country. Schools are using money from the fund to put solar panels on their buildings. A huge range of very important measures are being supported by this fund. Why would the Minister want to take money out of those programmes? Why would he decide this is the best place to find State funding to support people who are facing huge difficulties because of the war in Iran? Why is the Government sticking so closely to carbon tax, stressing how important that is and being very critical of other parties for not supporting it while at the same time doing exactly the same thing? When talking about extending this to 18 months, it is important that the Minister explain to us the programmes he is planning to cut. Will he cut community climate action projects, retrofitting of public buildings, electricity charging infrastructure, solar PV and district heating projects? Will he cut all those? Will he cut the climate officers in the local authorities? Which local authorities will he pull climate officers from? These projects are all fundamentally dependent on the revenue streams from NORA. There has to be some honesty in this discussion and it is unfortunate it has not been there so far. We are only on Second Stage and we have tabled an amendment to that effect. We would ask the Minister to seriously consider that amendment because this provision does not need to be extended beyond two months, in the same manner that the excise reduction has not been extended for longer than two months. So, we would ask that you actually seriously consider this, Minister. Minister? --- 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/dail/2026-03-25/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:47+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-25