I am glad to get the opportunity to contribute on this important topic. I have never seen so many people so angry in recent times about what is happening to them and what is being allowed to happen to them by this Government. Electricity charges have trebled in the past 12 months. They have gone up every day since the Lanesboro and Shannonbridge plants were closed and the Government provided no alternative at that time. It was only when they were stuck last year, before the war, that they started buying coal from R…

I am asking the Minister, Deputy Ryan, again here today to open up Shannon LNG. I heard the Minister last night and he appears to have no notion of doing that. I am asking the Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Leo Varadkar, to ensure that it is reopened.

There is a bigger war here.

The Minister caused it.

The Minister of State's gang is the very same.

The truth hurts.

We are the Rural Independent Group------

We should not be depending on Russian gas.

It was made complex.

Households, businesses and people everywhere are terrified by the exorbitant cost of the electricity bills they are receiving. They see where the ESB companies' profits have trebled and their standing charges have trebled, and they ask whether the Government has any control. The Government has a 90% share in ESB. The Minister states the way to go is electric. Is the Government to let this continue? Where is the energy regulator? Has the Government any control over what is happening? Is this to be allowed continue? …

I reiterate what I have said previously about electric cars. I have nothing against electric cars but it is a fact people will buy electric cars when they are reliable and when they are a real alternative to what we have at present. People cannot be forced out of good diesel cars that can travel the distance, let us say from Kerry to Dublin, without having to refuel. I can actually go back home again, just about, without refuelling, but if that was an electric car, there is no way in the world that I would make it …

He and his Minister colleagues fly first-class.

They are coming across from-----

I am flabbergasted and do not know where to start. When someone who is elected by the people comes in here, having got enough votes, those people are depending on the person to do the right thing. For someone to come in here and try to use his influence to obliterate the rights and proposals put in place by a local authority that has arrived at something collectively - there are 33 councillors elected to Kerry County Council. To think that someone in this Chamber, or a group of people, would try to deny them what t…

I am glad to get the opportunity to talk on this important matter. It has been the Government's mantra that the carbon tax it is collecting is going into deep retrofitting. As the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, who is present, has been told here all evening, there is a wait of up to two years. What is happening to the money the Government is collecting from hard-beaten motorists, whether they are lorry drivers or tractor drivers or whoever? They are playing carbon tax at an exorbitant rate and the Government is g…

The Tánaiste blocked the licences.

Who is telling the truth, Tánaiste?

They are all gone.

I wish to raise with the Tánaiste the failure of the HSE to provide home help for elderly people to stay in their homes. I have raised this several times already this year. People are being approved but still there is no home help arriving. It is a natural desire for elderly people to want to stay in their homes. Elderly people in places such as Killarney, Rathmore, Headfort, Kilcummin, Curragh, Castleisland and Killorglin are waiting for extra hours and some of them that do not have any home help at all are waitin…

Not all of it.