Mineral Oil Tax: Financial Resolution
Dail Éireann — 2026-08-28
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Paul Nicholas Gogarty (IND), Dublin Mid-West

I send my best wishes to Senan Molony on his retirement. Here we are with another bandage to help hard-pressed citizens deal with rising energy costs arising from circumstances beyond their control. I am also happy to stick it on while also sticking it to Donald Trump but we really need to look at the bigger picture. The Tánaiste referred to our dependence on imported fossil fuels. As the late great Dolly Parton once sang:
It's a rich man's game no matter what they call it
And you spend your life puttin' money in his wallet
We are spending our Irish life putting money into rich countries' wallets. We are sending a fortune abroad when we have the potential to be net energy exporters. To be honest, there is more energy in a flashlight at Electric Picnic than in this tired Government. The national energy affordability task force is not fit for purpose. Electricity will not be affordable for decades unless we roll out the renewable grid, home insulation, solar power and electric vehicles and allow people to charge their EVs on domestic tariffs. We need to get real and start acting now. It is a wartime situation.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-08-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-31T01:00:52+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-08-28