Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-26
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Pearse Doherty (SF), Donegal

More spin and more deflection from the Minister. What he says is nonsense. Everybody knows what happened. We have led on this issue. We put forward an amendment that would have seen the maximum reduction in the price of diesel for people and the same reduction for petrol and would have seen excise duty completely removed from home heating oil, the cost of which has nearly doubled in four weeks. What did the Tánaiste do? What did his colleagues in Fine Gael do? What did Fianna Fáil and the Independent lackeys who support the Government do? They voted it down. They left 750,000 families in the lurch. That is what they did. They abandoned them. I put it to the Tánaiste directly, what does he say to people, the majority of whom do not get fuel allowance? What does he say to that woman who was talking to me, who is sitting in her home and cannot put on the heating? What does he say to her? What does he say to the woman I spoke about last night in the Dáil, who was wrapped in a blanket with a disabled son and is afraid to turn on the heating? The Tánaiste abandoned those people and I am telling him we can do the right thing now. He can recognise he has made a mistake and bring a financial resolution forward, as Sinn Féin have proposed, to cut excise duty to the maximum amount on home heating oil and give people real support at this time of crisis. That is what the Tánaiste should be doing.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:47+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-26