Finance Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-17
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Cian O'Callaghan (SD), Dublin Bay North

In all the Minister of State said, there was a complete absence of acknowledgment of the very real pain that people on low-to-middle incomes are under in terms of the price increases. If you look at home-heating oil, for example, and people who do not avail of the fuel allowance increase because they are above those thresholds and cannot afford those increases in home-heating oil, the Government does not seem to be acknowledging that. We have put forward proposals. A targeted energy credit of €400 would be a start to helping households in that situation. We have put forward proposals for investment now, which would mean a long-term and permanent reduction in the cost of living for households that are struggling, by much-improved grants for solar. That would be a once-off investment by Government but it would be a permanent reduction. It would be good for sustainability and good for households that are really struggling.
What is really enraging - the ESRI research backs this up - is that when you look at the huge investment that has gone into grants, it is the households with the most resources, those which needed support least, that have overwhelmingly been able to avail of those different grants. The households really struggling to keep food on the table and to heat their homes are the ones that cannot avail of those grants. They simply do not have the resources to do so and they are the ones that are getting squeezed more and more. What is needed is a change in approach so that the greatest supports go to those households that are really struggling with their bills, that is, the low-to-middle income households. The Minister of State should design the grants for those households in a way that they can access them. In fact, why should households on the highest of incomes be able to avail of those grants? They do not need that support or help at all. Why not prioritise the households that really need it?
The Government keeps on talking about targeting but yet, when it comes down to it, that is not what the Government does. The Government needs to be serious about just transition, which we all need to be serious about, and serious about getting support and buy-in for that. The Government approach, however, has ignored that people across the country want to support that but they have to be able to afford to support it. We have put forward two very practical measures the Minister of State could take - targeted energy credits now to help those who need the help most but also measures such as proper grants that can be accessible to low-and-middle income households to install solar so they get a permanent reduction in their bills, and that would be good for the country in terms of helping to break some of our dependence on fossil fuels. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Minister of State would not adopt our proposals.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:09+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-17