Air Pollution (Amendment) Bill 2025 [Seanad]: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-16
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Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West

While Fianna Fáil wallows in never-ending dysfunction, older people in this country struggle to keep warm. The country cannot wait for Fianna Fáil to get its act together. I agree with many of the Fianna Fáil backbenchers, in that Micheál Martin has to go. All of these decisions the Government is involved in have significant consequences. Some of those consequences are unexpected.
I agree that we must become a country with far cleaner air. No one wants to see individuals lose their lives prematurely due to poor air quality or people developing diseases of the lung, etc., as a result of poor air quality. This legislation does not exist in a vacuum, however. It must exist in the real world in which people live and are struggling. The baseline is that we have 320,000 Irish households currently in fuel poverty. The issue we are hearing on the doorsteps and in our constituency offices is that people are struggling to keep the lights on, their houses warm and their businesses going. The unaffordability of fuels is the biggest issue people are experiencing.
In reality, fuel poverty and the lack of fuel also cause deaths in our country. It is estimated that approximately 2,800 people die in our country per year as a result of a lack of fuel. That is a very serious issue. In a scenario where fuel is getting harder to secure, reducing access to other fuels leads to poverty, people being unable to heat their homes, and deaths. That is not being understood enough by the Government.
There are people around the country, especially in regional and rural Ireland and older families who do not have the technology to use sustainable energy, who are dependent on turf. They cannot come about turf, however, because the local fella up the road who used to cut half an acre of bog cannot sell it to them any more as a result of Government law. One of the big problems is that the Government’s attitude to energy is Dublin centric. The fact the Government was not willing to give a real relief on kerosene - home heating oil - which is the basis of home heating in most of regional and rural Ireland, shows the disconnect of Ministers in this Government. They do not see beyond the M50 when developing policies.
This is quite a hardcore Bill, with €500,000 in fines and search and seizure powers to be provided in certain situations. At the other end of the scale, we have individuals who, for want of turf, sticks and coal, cannot heat their homes.
My difficulty with this Government is its reliance on the stick rather than the carrot to change people’s behaviours. The shocking level of taxation put on fuel, for example, is a stick to move people out of fossil fuels but many people simply do not have an alternative. Behaviours are not changed when there are no alternatives. This simply enforces a punitive tax on people that they cannot afford to pay. There is a massive cost barrier in switching from coal, turf or sticks. These people do not desire to pollute or create unhealthy breathing air for individuals, but they have no option because they have no other fuel source.
The Government must use the carrot. This approach is harder. Competency is needed for the Government to be able to deliver it, and competency is in short measure in this Government for sure. Alternatives need to be offered to people. We heard about cars idling, for example. I will attend a public meeting tonight in Castleknock Lawn Tennis Club at 7.30 p.m. If the Minister is around, he might like to attend. It is not too far from him.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-16