Home Heating Oil (Emergency Mineral Oil Tax Reduction) Bill 2026: Second Stage [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-22
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Matt Carthy (SF), Cavan-Monaghan

For the benefit of bringing the Minister of State down from her ivory tower and into the real world, I will read into the record an abridged email I received from a constituent:
Hi Matt,
From a worried working family mother of three children, one just did his Leaving Cert ... a fifth year student and a first year student, I'm self employed and my husband is a full time joiner, we are scraping the barrel to stay above paying our bills, keeping food on the table and running a car, we are truly grateful that we have work but honestly hand on heart we haven't the price of a meal out when we have our bills paid. Winter is upon us and we have oil heating, it isn't going on we have an open fire but that just purposes the living room, but at least we have it definitely no coal been bought just plenty of sticks ...
We are in 2026 and where we should be getting by nicely but we are crippled and that is down to Government.
What about us working class; my husband leaves the house at 4.45 a.m. each morning for work to keep us afloat but out of his wages he pays almost half of it in taxes.
I suppose I’m making contact for you as part of the opposition to fight our corner in the Dail, we are at knife edge and I’m so afraid with stress and worry some of our health will deteriorate, we need help.
When the Minister of State and her colleagues pontificate about political manoeuvres, this woman's story and the hundreds of thousands like it are the reason Sinn Féin has brought this motion tonight. We will make no apologies for demanding that workers and families get the break they deserve because, as the Minister of State said, the facts do not lie. The facts are that last year the Government introduced and supported a budget that included €9 billion of additional spending and families like this were left worse off. They are the absolute facts, so we will do everything we can to force the Government to abolish carbon tax on home heating oil; to reduce the cost of petrol and diesel; abolish the USC on the first €40,000; to tackle the soaring cost of energy, insurance and groceries; and to finally begin easing the pressure on families like this. It is the least they deserve from the Government.

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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