Finance Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages Dail Éireann — 2026-06-17 ============================================================ Pearse Doherty (SF), Donegal The Minister of State does not sit at the Cabinet table but the 15 Ministers who sat around the Cabinet table last October and made a decision to withdraw energy credits made a decision to leave people with disabilities €1,400 worse off. At a time when they knew that prices were going to continue to go up, and at a time when they knew that so many families were under pressure, what did they think was going to happen? What was going to happen is what we have seen materialise in front of our eyes, which is that more and more people have fallen into financial pressure. Each month more and more families cannot pay their electricity bills or gas bills. I see it when I speak to people. Sometimes we get numb to the numbers. Sometimes numbers such as half a million just roll off our tongues but 320,000 families are not able to pay their electricity bills and 180,000 families are not able to pay their gas bills. This is massive. Many of these families have two, three or four people in their household. Just think about what this looks like. Think about how many times Croke Park would be filled over and over again with the people who cannot pay for their basics in the Ireland of 2026, and who cannot pay for their electricity or their gas. We could fill Croke Park ten times over and there would still be queues of people outside, young and old, who say they also cannot pay their electricity or gas bills. The decision of the Government was to withdraw the only support they relied on. Knowing that the pressure was getting worse and that inflation was continuing to rise, it withdrew the supports. What it did to people with disability, leaving them €1,400 worse off, was disgraceful. I called it out on budget night. The cost of disability is real. We thought the Government finally understood this when it paid a lump sum that was higher than in the past to people with disability but instead what it did was took away those supports that people depended on. This is why so many people are angry, frustrated and under serious pressure. There are policies the Government can deliver that would provide benefits to people right here and right now. Earlier when speaking on this legislation I said the only guarantee the Irish people have is that carbon tax is going up to make petrol and diesel dearer, to make home heating oil dearer, to make the cost of gas dearer and to make the cost of a bag of coal dearer. The only guarantee people have is that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will put it up every single year for the next four years. There is no guarantee in terms of what people on social welfare or people with disabilities depend on and how much more they can expect in the next couple of years. There is no legislation to say what it will look like for them. What the Government is doing is wrong. Tá an rud atá an Rialtas ag déanamh go huile agus go hiomlán contráilte. Táimid in Sinn Féin ag cur moltaí chun tosaigh arís agus arís eile ag rá go soiléir - is sampla iad na ceithre leasuithe atá curtha síos agam anocht - go bhfuil tuilleadh tacaíochta de dhíth ar ghnáthdhaoine na tíre seo, agus go bhfuil an t-airgead sa tír seo leis an tacaíocht sin a chur ar fáil. Is é an rud atá in easnamh anseo ná Rialtas a thuigeann an brú atá ar ghnáthdhaoine na tíre seo. Níl an Rialtas réidh agus sásta beart a dhéanamh le cuidiú leo. Tá an cuidiú sin de dhíth ar dhaoine fud fad na tíre seo. Tá sé contráilte go bhfuil an Rialtas ag tabhairt isteach reachtaíochta agus ag rá le daoine sa tír seo go bhfuil sé ag cur suas an praghas ar dhíosal faoi 32 cent ar an 1 Lúnasa agus an praghas ar pheitreal faoi 27 cent ar an lá céanna, agus ag ardú an praghas ar pheitreal agus ar dhíosal arís i mí Dheireadh Fómhair mar aon le hola le haghaidh téamh tí. Sin an fáth go seasann Sinn Féin in éadan na reachtaíochta seo. Sin an fáth fosta go dtabharfaimid tacaíocht don leasú atá os ár gcomhair le cinnte a dhéanamh de go bhfuil tacaíocht ansin do dhaoine sa tír seo ó thaobh costais fuinnimh de. Tá 320,000 duine fud fad na tíre seo nach bhfuil ábalta a gcuid billí leictreachais a dhíol agus duine as achan ceathrar nach bhfuil ábalta a gcuid billí gáis a dhíol. Is é an fáth go bhfuil sé sin ag tarlú ná go bhfuil Rialtas againn nach dtuigeann an brú atá ar dhaoine. Tá an t-airgead sa tír ach níl an toil pholaitiúil ansin. Tugaim tacaíocht don leasú seo ach seasaim in éadan na reachtaíochta atá an Rialtas ag cur chun tosaigh fá choinne na fáthanna atá curtha chun tosaigh agam anseo. --- 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/2026-06-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:09+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-17