Home Heating Oil (Emergency Mineral Oil Tax Reduction) Bill 2026: Second Stage [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-22
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Sorca Clarke (SF), Longford-Westmeath

I want the Minister of State to come to Longford-Westmeath and meet the families who have been looking at empty oil tanks for months, hoping against hope the Government would move as prices got higher and higher. The Minister of State has the gall to ask them to hope a little more and to hold on a little longer so that the Government might just get a notion of doing something in the budget. That is not good enough. For seven months, the price of home heating oil has been in crisis.
I remember banging on doors in the run-up to the last general election when it was -4 degrees Celsius, and when people opened them, no heat came out. This has not just been going on for that length of time. The price might have been lower, but it was still biting. For all those seven months, the Government has failed to act each time Sinn Féin has put proposals in front of it. It has failed to recognise the pressure families are under or to comprehend what its actions are doing to families the length and breadth of the country.
In my area, 1,000 litres of oil will set you back €1,600 today. That is not another household bill; that is a second mortgage. Many people simply do not have it. It hits rural areas like mine so much harder than urban areas because we do not have a choice. In my area, you cannot simply connect to the gas network because it does not exist. You cannot simply magic solar panels onto the roof because the waiting lists are eight, nine or ten months long. No responsible government would tell a family who is sitting in a cold home tonight that it might help, hinting that there will be something in the budget when that family needs heat and needs oil today. Tonight, the Government has a very simple choice. It can tell those families, including those families in my area, to keep paying or it can actually stand up, do something constructive and take action today. Winter will not wait and neither should the people of Longford-Westmeath.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-22