An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-22
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Sharon Keogan (IND), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I join my colleagues in expressing condolences to the friends and family of Enda Bonner - may he rest in peace - and to my colleague, Senator Gerard Craughwell, on the loss of his wife, Helen.
What I wish to speak about today is the story that was in The Irish Times this morning, where the president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, IRHA, warned that hauliers cannot sustain current fuel prices. When asked if there would be another round of protests, he said that desperate times make desperate people. As fuel prices continue to climb, regardless of Government taxes or not, I think it is fair to acknowledge that we are now in desperate times. Before anyone says that this is just one group of people representing one industry, it is not. Last week, a poll showed that if fuel prices continue to rise, a massive 60% to 66% of the Irish public would support a new round of protests. That is no surprise, because fuel protests do not just affect truck drivers. Everything in this country relies on fuel and energy prices. If anything goes up, the ordinary working people of Ireland are already on a knife's edge. All of Europe is reporting record high fuel prices. The Middle East is in crisis, as there looks to be no resolution with Iran and the Saudi Government is cancelling its oil shipments. While I naturally believe that the Government should delay the taxes, this is a stop-gap solution. What this entire crisis says is that we need a total overhaul of our energy policy. I will repeat my call from before. I think we need to go further and scrap fuel taxes altogether, and we need to invest our current surplus into serious long-term infrastructure such as public transport, roads, railways, and even nuclear energy, things that will pay us back in the long run. Most of all, I believe we need to seriously re-evaluate and scrap much of the eco-alarmist policies that have left our hands tied behind our backs at a time when we are fighting for our lives.

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