Sharon Keogan: Energy Policy Has Driven Ireland to Crisis
Sharon Keogan addressed the Dáil to argue that current government energy policy has created an extreme national crisis and made protests inevitable. She blamed decisions on gas, peat, fuel taxes and airport caps for making life unaffordable and urged a reversal of course.
Main allegation
Sharon Keogan tells the Dáil that today’s motion reflects an extreme situation brought on by government energy policy. She says the protests were not sudden or surprising but the predictable outcome of choices to restrict domestic fuel use, raise taxes and limit travel.
Policy failures
Keogan outlines specific policy decisions she says contributed to the crisis: not exploiting domestic gas, shutting peat harvesting, rising fuel costs driven by tax choices that Labour and Sinn Féin supported, and caps at Dublin Airport. She argues these moves have left hauliers and workers vulnerable when a global energy shock arrived.
Economic consequences and accountability
Keogan highlights the human cost: people unable to drive to jobs, unable to afford to move or even to leave the country. She questions spending priorities despite a budget surplus, citing RTE bailout payments, IPA accommodation costs, perceived payouts to landlords, NGOs and other expenditures raised in her remarks.
Demand for change
Keogan concludes by warning that without a serious reversal of course and a new vision for the nation, the crisis and unrest will continue. Her address calls for policy changes that restore affordability and protect industries and workers.
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Ciúcha hIarlech and Leader, I'm aware there's a motion before the Dáil as we speak so I'll be very careful what I say in order to respect our standing orders but I will have to say that today's motion is an embodiment of the extreme situation which our nation has come to and it's this extreme situation that I wish to speak to. There were a number of political commentators who said that these protests were somehow unexpected and came out of nowhere but I have to say this is totally incorrect. I've mentioned the threat of the collapsed to the hauliers and other industries by this government energies policy twice in recent months. I've been speaking repeatedly again and again about how the government's policy on energy, not exploring or exploiting our own gas fuels, shutting down our peat harvesting plants, then increasing tax on increasingly expensive fuel. People need to work. Tax which Labour and Sinn Féin supported. This insane directionalist policy has been sleepwalking us into fatal vulnerability. Well now here we are. A global energy shock happened and now life has been made simply impossible in this country. People cannot afford to move out and if they get a job they cannot afford to drive to it and with the continuing caps on Dublin Airport added to the global energy crisis soon enough we won't even be able to afford to leave the country and yet we run a budget surplus and we are supposedly one of the richest countries in the world and God knows I hear constituents speak of how hard the tax bill hurts them. So where does this money go? To the 300,000 bike shed? To the 56 million bailout to RTE? To the six billion to the IPA accommodation? Straight into the pockets of already rich landlords? And then how many millions to the NGOs and the Klangos with no accountability? These protests are not predictable. They were inevitable and until we see a serious reversal of course and a serious new vision for this nation this crisis will remain inevitable.
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