Confidence in Government: Motion
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-14
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Mary Lou McDonald (SF), Dublin Central

Let us be honest - all of this did not start last week. The seeds were sown in the budget in October, a budget of €9.4 billion that still managed to leave people worse off. In that budget, the Government claimed that the cost-of-living crisis had passed and it turned its back on reality. It was a budget that looked after developers, corporate landlords and the banks, but left workers, carers, people with disabilities and families behind. The Government pretended everything was fine while people knew it was anything but that. Since then, things have only got worse.
People feel it every single day. They live it in the supermarkets, at the petrol pumps, when the bills land on the kitchen table, as workers head out the door in the morning wondering how they will afford to fill their car, as families ration heat and decide which rooms they can afford to warm, and as carers and people with disabilities face the choice of heating or eating. That is their lived reality.
What did the Government do as this pressure built? Well, it sent out bills to parents to increase school transport fees. It reintroduced exam fees for leaving cert and junior cert students. Prices continued to rise. The warnings came, too. The Government was told, but it ignored every last one of us. Its half measures three weeks ago only tinkered at the edges. A modest cut in excise was wiped out almost immediately. There was absolutely no action on home heating oil and no meaningful support for workers. We told the Government clearly that its half measures would not cut it. Remember, we also provided it with an alternative that would have made fuel affordable and would have supported people, but the Government walked away. It sent the Dáil home for 20 days while people struggled. That was 20 days while costs surged and families were left to cope alone. Taoiseach, I wrote to you-----

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Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-14