Home Heating Oil (Emergency Mineral Oil Tax Reduction) Bill 2026: Second Stage [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-09-22 ============================================================ Ged Nash (LAB), Louth I will be sharing time with my colleague, Deputy Eoghan Kenny. I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this Bill this evening. I know it is very much anchored in Sinn Féin's position that it has opposed the imposition of carbon taxes over a number of years. It is also very much anchored in the consistent position it has enunciated over many years in relation to local property tax, USC and so on. We in the Labour Party take a different view. Our view is based on how we can best provide the supports required for people who will need them the most through what will be a very difficult winter. I recall very well debates in the convention centre - God help us - several years ago, when we were setting out the ten-year agenda for incremental and predictable increases to the carbon tax as a means of reducing reliance on fossil fuels at that time and out to 2030. I remember the view being expressed by Ministers at the time that this was a means by which we could broaden the tax base. This was very much bedded in the principle of ensuring the polluter pays - an important principle - but also that by the time we got to the end of this process in 2030, we would all be rolling in renewable energy. We would have cheap energy shipped in from out at sea, connected into the grid and we would be supplying half of Europe with cheap energy because of the investment we were going to make into offshore wind. This Government and the previous Government have missed two, if not three, targets for offshore wind at this point and will not generate a single kilowatt of offshore wind until the early 2030s. That is the position we are in, yet energy bills climb continuously without any respite. We were also told we could expect a retrofitting revolution, that homes would be warmer and cheaper to heat and those who needed the most help for a genuinely just transition - because we do not have a genuinely just transition - would get it through this system and Exchequer revenue-supported schemes. I accept that the past two energy shocks had nothing to do with this Government but what has been its response? We saw reports today of a 77% surge in electricity wholesale prices. That is only going to - excuse the term - add fuel to the fire over the next few months. We will not see the impact of that until early next year - an early new year present from the energy companies which, at this present time, are popping the champagne corks and celebrating excess profits that are being generated not because of the genius of their engineers and business managers but because of the volatility of international energy markets and our reliance in this country on gas and oil. Almost half of our electricity is generated by gas. This is absolute madness. From an economic, social and climate point of view, it is absolutely crazy. We have not moved the dial on that. We cannot control in any way the price of the commodities we import, but we can do what we can as a state that has the resources to support those who need support the most. The jury is out as to whether or not, for example, carbon tax increases - blunt instruments used across the board - are the best way of addressing the needs of those on low and middle incomes. I have just come from a meeting of the budgetary oversight committee where Professor Alan Barrett of the ESRI said the worst way one could possibly help struggling families and businesses at the moment with their fuel costs at the pump is excise cuts. He more or less said it is bananas. There are other ways of doing it. An ESRI report last week said very clearly, and I am paraphrasing here, that there are of course impacts on the imposition of carbon tax, but the best way to mitigate that, to deal with the issue lower and middle income workers are experiencing and to keep those resources to ensure they are used for retrofitting, fuel allowances and so on, is through the tax and social welfare systems. We have to also ask ourselves what we have got. We have 700,000 homes dependent on kerosene across the country. It is not just a rural issue either. It is an issue in my home town of Drogheda and Deputy Ó Murchú's home town of Dundalk. The reliance on kerosene is also an issue in urban Ireland. What are we going to do about that? We all want to provide people who are reliant on home heating oil with some breathing space this autumn and winter. This is going to be an extremely difficult winter. The question is how we do that and do it efficiently, sustainably and effectively. The second question is how we deal with that structural problem of moving people away from kerosene and innovating to ensure we can get to a sustainable alternative. I will return to those questions in a moment but the crystal ball tells us two things. We have seen the media briefings today. The first is that Government will no doubt push the planned excise restorations on petrol and diesel out to next year. This is the Realpolitik of the situation. That is what is going to happen and I will be more than surprised if it does not. The second is that it will do something on carbon tax in terms of home heating oil in the budget. Can we stop the shadow boxing going on at the moment and get real about this? We need to stop pretending and stop spoofing. People understand the direction of travel of this and where it is going. Let us have a bit of honesty about this debate. We cannot simply continue to subsidise fossil fuels in the way we have. People are looking for alternatives; they want the safe and sustainable alternative. We cannot continue, in all reality, to chase the price of petrol and diesel over the next few years. In many ways, that will leave people less well-off. Why do I say that? We are going to see people dependent on social welfare in the next few years. With the funds available through carbon taxation and excise, we are going to see retrofitting, the fuel allowance and so on competing with other Exchequer revenue resources that are ordinarily used for other social welfare systems, such as the pension and so on and also through the PRSI system. There are going to be those kinds of trade-offs and we need to be honest about this debate in the coming period. From our point of view, there needs to be an increase of at least €7.50 on the fuel allowance this year and an extension of it out by another four weeks. That will add another €400 to the fuel allowance for families who need it in the coming period. That would address the issue of the proposed rises to the carbon tax - which I do not believe will happen, by the way - over the next while. We need those energy credits paid for by the imposition of a levy on the excess profits of the energy companies. This is an issue we will be returning to. It is the issue du jour , as it were, and I look forward to engaging with Government on the budget in this respect in the next period. --- 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/2026-09-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-22