At Leaders Questions in the Dail today, Aontú Leader and Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín challenged the Taoiseach to give real respite to struggling families by cutting Carbon Tax on home heating oil. He stated:
“The price of home-heating oil shot up by 85% in recent weeks. Last month, in February, the price of 1,000 litres of home heating oil in Ireland was around €950. It is now retailing at €1,750. This country saw the biggest home heating oil price increase in EU. Very few families have the colour of €1,750 lying around the house at any one time. Hard working families, Nurses, Garda, Teachers, small business owners simply don’t have that money.
One nurse who contacted my office said that they haven’t been able to refill the home heating oil and as a result their family is going to bed early and keeping warm. She said that they don’t smoke, drink, go out, get takeaways. They are embarrassed that they cant give their children the things that they need. She stated that they are now one fill of home heating oil way from going financially under.
She is not alone. 2 million people are dependent on home heating oil. Houses in Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim have no connection to the Natural gas grid at all. Regional and rural Ireland are locked into this fuel source.
What did you did you do for these families? You took 2 cent off a litre of home heating oil. In the jaws of an energy crisis when home heating oil is has had record increases your amazing plan is to drop the price of a litre of home heating oil by 2cents. From €1,750 to 1730 for a fill of home heating oil.
That’s an absolute disgrace. But its not the full picture. You plan to increase the Carbon tax on home heating oil in a few weeks by an amount which would completely wipe out this paltry cut. The net result of the government’s actions, in the teeth of real hardship will be to raise the total tax on home heating oil.
Families are being crushed by the energy crisis. Small businesses are going to the wall. Carers can’t afford to drive to mind older people. Workers cant fill their cars to get to work. Farmers’ costs are spiking when prices of their produce is falling. And your plan is to increase the net tax take on home heating oil.
At the heart of the energy crisis is excessive government taxes. For sure the war in Iran has significantly accelerated hardship on families, but the government was taking 60% to 65% of the price of petrol and diesel in taxes before the war. 320,000 families were in energy arrears before the war. Irish electricity prices were at their highest in Europe before the war. The painful reality is your government is fuel tax gouging. Your government collected €4.1bn in fuel taxes in 2024. You have raised Carbon Tax to record levels topping out at €1bn. Will you cut Carbon Tax on Home Heating Oil today”?
Shockingly the Taoiseach refused to reduce Carbon taxes for families.
