Confidence in Government: Motion Dail Éireann — 2026-04-14 ============================================================ Ivana Bacik (LAB), Dublin Bay South It has consistently rowed back on climate action commitments. It has arrogantly dismissed and consistently voted down constructive proposals from Labour and others in opposition on taking action on housing, workers’ rights and on the cost of living. The Government stopped sick pay increases and rowed back on a living wage. It voted down our Labour Party Bill on the right to remote working. It sneered at calls for stronger State action on housing or the development of a State construction company. The budget last October provided no relief for working people. It failed to index income taxes, removed vital once-off supports and at the same time committed millions of euro to untargeted VAT cuts for construction and hospitality - big builders and burger barons. The value of those VAT cuts will be washed away in the inflation likely to hit us over the next six months. The price of construction of a house is already reported to have increased by between €25,000 and €30,000. The VAT cut on hospitality was never going to be passed on anyway and would have been better spent on targeted supports for those now in fuel and energy poverty. This Government cannot be trusted to manage the public finances. There is a €600 million deficit already forecast for the Department of education. The Government managed to spend nearly a billion euro on fuel supports without any new measures that will tackle energy poverty or address the near €200 million of arrears on household gas and electricity bills. As our Labour Party finance spokesperson, Ged Nash, has said, the measures the Government announced on Sunday are designed to placate sectoral interests, effectively abandoning PAYE workers - low and middle-income earners who have no option other than to pay taxes but whose pay packets that are under increasing pressure in this cost-of-living crisis. There is pressure from rising energy bills but also from skyrocketing grocery prices as we face food insecurity, and from escalating housing costs. We need substantive engagement from Government at the upcoming LEEF talks, substantive engagement with the trade unions, and Labour will strongly support the trade union movement in seeking pay rises for hard-pressed workers and working families. We all know who caused outbreak of this most recent fuel crisis, yet this Government has failed to condemn the illegal war launched by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. We know that our economy, our energy security and our society are being threatened because of the actions of the US and Israel. The Government must now call in the US ambassador, challenge them on their illegal warmongering, their threats made just a week ago to wipe out a civilisation and their ongoing blockade of ships. We must recognise the United States is not acting as a friend any more and the fuel protests result from the US and Israel's war on Iran. The Government must press the EU to sanction Israel as it seeks to conquer southern Lebanon. We are watching in horror as Israel erases villages from the map, colonises the West Bank and continues to destroy Gaza and entrench its system of apartheid. When will the EU act to end the trade agreement with Israel? When will the Government act to pass the occupied territories Bill it committed to in the general election but walked away from once office was secured? Now is the time, and the Taoiseach would have Opposition support to send America and Israel a real message on this and pass the occupied territories Bill in full to cover trade in goods and services, and to work with Spain and other progressives across the EU to force the EU to suspend the Israel trade agreement. These are real things that could be done but we know the Taoiseach will not do them because his conservative Government lacks the courage to do so. Taoiseach, you have failed PAYE workers, struggling households and hard-pressed families. We in the Labour Party have no confidence in you. --- 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