National Oil Reserves Agency (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-25
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Timmy Dooley (FF), Clare

I appreciate the contributions of all who spoke in the debate today, some down standard political lines, but others fully understanding and cognisant of where the Irish economy and the various sectors are at. They are really negatively impacted by the massive disruption to the supply of oil from the Middle East to the Irish economy.
At the outset, I thank Deputy Danny Healy-Rae for his comments. I know where he is coming from. As the Minister of State with responsibility for the fishing sector, I know there is no immediate solution because the oil that is used does not carry the same taxes as petrol and diesel at the pumps, so there is a difficulty. I take the Deputy’s point with regard to the subsidy. The difficulty with subsidies is that they have to be paid for from somewhere else, and it is a challenge to try to burden some other sector of society. It is a transfer, effectively, or a tax that would have to be raised elsewhere, so that is a challenge.
What the Government did this week was to look at the tax model through the excise. I know that some have sought to represent that as being mean or not being an appropriate response, but it was the only response that could have been taken, unless we were to start looking at raising taxes elsewhere. Others have sought to undermine the carbon tax. In fairness, Deputy Healy-Rae did not go down that road.

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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