Home Heating Oil (Emergency Mineral Oil Tax Reduction) Bill 2026: Second Stage [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-09-22 ============================================================ Eoghan Kenny (LAB), Cork North-Central As my colleague Deputy Nash has outlined, the Labour Party has provided significant costed budgetary proposals that would help people in the here and now. I do not think any of us in this House can justify raising taxes or increasing the price of petrol, diesel or home heating oil on ordinary working people any further in the midst of a years-long cost of living crisis. For families across Ireland, the cost of living, the cost of the very basics, is continuing to spiral. The costs of simply getting to work, getting children to school, attending appointments, doing the weekly shop and keeping daily life moving are keeping many people in poverty and dragging people into energy arrears, bringing them to a paycheck-to-paycheck battle. There is deep frustration among the public and it is hardworking ordinary families who are being put to the pin of their collars, trying to make ends meet. Ordinary people are being squeezed from every direction. For many, there is no easy alternative to using a car. They have to drive to work and they have to bring their children to school or childcare. They have to travel to access healthcare, shops and essential services, yet they are being asked to absorb additional costs that many simply cannot afford. Families across this country are at absolute breaking point. People are doing everything right. They are working, paying their taxes and trying to provide for their families, but they are still falling behind as costs of fuel, groceries, energy and housing continue to put pressure on household budgets. That is where our focus must be. We also need to consider what these policies mean for younger people. According to a survey by the National Youth Council of Ireland, 68% of those aged between 18 and 24 years surveyed said they were considering moving abroad, while 71% said they believed they would have a better quality of life outside of Ireland. I have been receiving more and more texts and emails from young people in Cork who are around my own age about the state of living and working here. They are asking a very basic question: how are they expected to build a future here in Ireland? Young people are facing enormous pressures from the cost of housing, energy, transport and everyday life. Many of them are working hard, paying their taxes and contributing to their communities and society, yet they do not feel they are getting on. Costs keep going up while too many public services continue to struggle. A basic necessity such as getting to a GP appointment or being seen in a hospital is a wait. Schools are struggling to meet even their most basic running costs, with principals being forced to make difficult decisions about how limited resources are spent. Roughly 30% of households are experiencing fuel poverty. Many Irish homes are older, poorly insulated, and have low building energy ratings. Those homes require significantly more energy to heat. The people most vulnerable to increases in fuel and energy costs are often those least able to pay for them. They include older people living alone, lone-parent families, unemployed people, people with disabilities or chronic health conditions who may have higher baseline heating needs, and private renters who can face particular difficulties because they cannot make decisions about retrofitting or improving the energy efficiency of the homes that they live in. These are the people we need to think about when we are discussing the likes of increasing carbon taxes on home heating oil. Of course, we must take climate change seriously. Ireland needs to reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency but we cannot simply continue adding costs to households and telling people to absorb them when alternatives are lagging far behind. This is a perfect storm that the Government has a heavy responsibility for. The Government cannot control geopolitics but it can control how rapidly it invests in renewables and implements their usage broadly. The Government should focus on practical measures to help people change their behaviour without making it harder for them to make ends meet, including properly funded home retrofits, better public transport, affordable alternatives to car dependency, support for rural communities and targeted assistance for households facing energy poverty. We need policies that protect families, support workers, help young people build a future here and deliver genuine reductions in emissions. People are already paying are paying enough. That is why I cannot simply support further increases in carbon tax when so many households are already struggling with the cost of living. They deserve a good government that recognises the pressure that they are under and focuses on solutions that are fair, affordable and practical, just like the solutions that the Labour Party has presented. --- 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