Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-05-06 ============================================================ Mary Lou McDonald (SF), Dublin Central The urgent need for an emergency budget grows by the day. In the past week, we have had report after report all saying the same thing: this crisis is getting worse. This morning, we heard that rising prices hit the average household by close to €2,000 a year. Families are under huge pressure to keep up with the cost of groceries, fuel, insurance and energy bills, and €2,000 is a lot of money for those working families. For many, it is the difference between staying afloat or going under. The big question everyone is asking is: what is the Taoiseach waiting for? How bad do things have to get before he wakes up and acts? What happened on Friday last should be a loud wake-up call for his Government. PrepayPower, Ireland's largest pay-as-you-go energy provider, announced sharp hikes in its electricity and gas prices. Nearly 250,000 customers will see their average yearly bill shoot up by almost €300 and that is only the start. More increases are on the way. We already have the highest electricity prices in Europe, which was confirmed by Eurostat today. We pay €480 a year more compared to the EU average. Other suppliers will hike their prices in coming weeks, and why would they not? The big energy companies have nothing to fear from the Government. It has not laid a glove on them. It has taken no action to get prices down and its gutless, carte blanche approach and refusal to rein in these companies has left us with the highest electricity bills in Europe, bills that are landing now and have pushed more than 300,000 households into arrears. People are sick of the Government standing back as they take hit after hit. It will not take on the energy companies to get the prices down. It will not provide energy credits to help households with bills and it pushes back against the immediate need for an emergency budget. We have a do-nothing Government led by a do-nothing Taoiseach. As prices go through the roof, the Government leaves people in desperate situations - stress, worry, cutting back, going without and working hard but still struggling for the basics - but it has the resources to act. The surplus provides room to help but the Government's message to the working people of Ireland is to struggle on, make do and wait for next year's budget as the bills pile up. This is not just a bad political choice; this is, in fact, a dereliction of the Taoiseach's duty to the people who keep this country going. Tá tuilleadh arduithe ar phraghsanna leictreachais os ár gcomhair amach, ach tá Fianna Fáil agus Fine Gael fós sásta suí siar agus faic a dhéanamh. Tá cáinaisnéis éigeandála agus creidmheasanna fuinnimh ag teastáil láithreach. The time for lame excuses is over and the time for action is now. An emergency budget is not just another call from Sinn Féin. It is essential to help prevent households from going to the wall. Energy credits are vital to help families cope with runaway electricity prices. It boils down to this. The Taoiseach can either deliver an emergency budget, provide the energy credits, give households the lifeline they desperately need, or he can stand back and continue to do nothing. --- 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/2026-05-06/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:54+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-06