Fuel, Energy and Carbon Tax Relief: Motion [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-09-23 ============================================================ Michael Collins (II), Cork South-West Today, people are being crucified by the cost of fuel. Farmers, agricultural contractors, hauliers, small businesses and ordinary working families are being hammered every time they pull into a filling station or fill the tank with home heating oil. What are they being told? They are being told that diesel costing about €2 per litre could become the new normal. I want to make one thing absolutely clear on behalf of Independent Ireland. We will not accept €2 diesel as normal. There is nothing normal about families having to watch the fuel gauge because they are afraid of the cost of living and filling the car. There is nothing normal about a farmer wondering how much it will cost to keep the machinery running or about an older person being afraid to turn on the heat as winter approaches. The Government will say that international events are responsible for rising energy prices. Of course international events affect the price of oil, but the Government decides the tax, excise, whether to impose another carbon tax increase and whether to put its hand into the pockets of people who have no alternative. Do not come into the House and pretend that the Government is powerless. It is not powerless; it is making choices. For far too long, rural Ireland has been paying for those choices. A worker in rural Ireland cannot walk out the front door tomorrow morning and get on a bus that does not exist. A farmer cannot run a tractor on fresh air. An agricultural contractor cannot harvest a field without diesel. A haulier cannot deliver goods around the country without fuel. Have the fishermen of the country been factored in when it comes to these increases and the crisis we have at the moment? They have told me that they are in a dire situation. Some boats have stopped fishing due to the price of diesel. A 700 horsepower trawler towing for whitefish and prawns burns 3,000 litres during the course of a few days. That could cost up to €30,000. This is no longer sustainable in an industry that this and previous Governments have devastated in any event. An elderly person with an oil-fired heating system cannot magically produce thousands of euro to replace it because Government policy says they should do so. The Government cannot tax people into alternatives that it has failed to provide. That is the fundamental point behind this motion. We are demanding that all further scheduled increases in carbon tax be abolished, not postponed or delayed until political pressure dies down. If the Government wants people to change behaviour, it should give them a realistic and affordable alternative. It should not punish them for living in rural Ireland or for having to drive to work. It should not punish families for heating their homes with the only means available to them. Our farmers and agricultural contractors need action now. Some €85 million was allocated for agricultural fuel support. According to the figures in our motion, only around €26 million has been claimed. Leave the balance where it belongs. That money was allocated to agriculture and it must stay there. We are calling for the full €85 million to be ring-fenced and for the remaining money to be used to extend fuel support to farmers and agricultural contractors for another five months. Let nobody underestimate the situation facing agricultural contractors. When the price of green diesel is heading above €1.70 per litre, the sums simply stop adding up. These contractors are not operating machinery for recreation. They are cutting silage, harvesting crops, spreading slurry and carrying out the work that keeps Irish agriculture moving. If contractors cannot survive, farmers pay more. If farmers pay more, producing food costs more. If producing and transporting food costs more, the families and hard-working people of this country doing the weekly shop ultimately pay the price. This is not simply an agricultural issue; it is a food security and cost-of-living issue. It is an issue for every household in the country. The most recent figures from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, show that overall consumer prices have risen by 3.7% in the past year, but that headline figure does not tell the full story. Housing, electricity, gas and other fuel costs are up 8.5%. Transport costs are up 5.4% and education costs have risen by 8.9%. The CSO specifically points to rising home heating oil and electricity, rents and mortgage repayments, while higher petrol and diesel prices are adding to transport costs. Winter is approaching. Thousands of households, particularly across rural Ireland, depend on kerosene. Where are they supposed to go? What exactly is the Government's answer to the pensioner in west Cork or some other part of rural Ireland watching the price of heating oil rise? Is it that they should put on another jumper? That is not good enough. We need targeted winter assistance for older people, low-income families and households that are facing exceptional heating costs. We also need fairness for hauliers and businesses that transport their own goods. If a legitimate Irish business is manufacturing products, employing people, paying taxes and transporting goods using its own vehicles, it should not be pushed outside a support scheme because it does not tick the right bureaucratic box. These businesses create jobs. They deserve support, not red tape. There is another thing we are demanding before any future Government increases taxes on fuel or household energy: there should be a rural impact assessment taken out. --- 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/2026-09-23/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-23