Confidence in Government: Motion
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-14
============================================================

Pearse Doherty (SF), Donegal

Níl an Rialtas seo ag éisteacht le gnáthmhuintir na tíre. Níl sé sásta an gníomh a dhéanamh le cáin a ghearradh ar bhreosla sa dóigh is go mbeadh sé ar phraghas réasúnta. I gceantar tuaithe na hÉireann fud fad na tíre, tá oibrithe, teaghlaigh, feirmeoirí agus comhlachtaí beaga faoi bhrú ollmhór, gan rogha ar bith acu ach praghsanna arda a íoc. Nuair a labhair daoine amach agus nuair a chuaigh siad chun na sráide, chuir an Rialtas seo a gcás ar leataobh agus bhagair sé orthu in áit éisteacht leo. Fiú anois, tá na bearta atá á dtabhairt chun tosaigh ag an Rialtas i bhfad rólag. Is Rialtas é seo a bhfuil teipthe air, agus níl muinín ghnáthdhaoine na tíre seo ann. Caithfidh sé imeacht.
A government that does not listen does not have the confidence of ordinary people and, by God, this is a Government that does not listen. I lost count, but maybe the Ceann Comhairle might inform us, of how many pats on the back the Tánaiste gave himself earlier? I tell you that I have never heard such an out-of-touch speech in this Dáil. This is a Government that still refuses to make fuel prices affordable at the pumps. If the Tánaiste were listening he would know that the cost-of-living crisis is crushing ordinary people. Fuel prices have surged. Still more than half of what people pay at the pumps is taken away in taxes. Week after the week prices rose and pressure mounted. What did Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents do? They did nothing of substance. There was no urgency, no real intervention and no leadership. They stood back while people were being pushed to the brink. Their first response was an insult and any benefit was wiped out almost immediately. There was no action on home heating oil and no meaningful support for households or rural communities. It did not come close to addressing the problem.
Then what happened? They walked away and refused to recall the Dáil, which did not sit for 20 days. All the while, households faced soaring bills while workers struggled to get to work. Farmers and contractors face rising prices and input costs with no support from Government. We have seen businesses being pushed closer and closer to the edge. It was a failure and dereliction of duty, leaving people with no option but to rise up and take to the streets.
Instead of listening, what did Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents do? They dismissed them. They talked down to them. They refused to meet them. They threatened them. They threatened the Army on their own people. These are families struggling to heat their homes for God's sake and workers struggling to get to work. Farmers and rural communities are trying to keep going and this Government's instinct was not to help them but it was to threaten them.

---

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