Robert Troy: Why Ireland cannot afford fuel caps

Thank you Alasgan Comhairle and to keep my voice at a reasonable level I don't feel that just by shouting makes your point any more valid but I do welcome the opportunity to discuss the Sinn Féin private members motion on fuel this evening and can I firstly start off by saying as a government minister I engaged with the people who were protesting. I went out and I met the people on the N4 in Mullingar and I will recognise that those people were decent, honourable, hard-working people who did not wish to be there and they conducted the protest in Mullingar in a very responsible manner which facilitated the free movement of people and they engaged respectively with the Gardaí to ensure that people could move freely but that is not a true reflection of what happened everywhere and that is not a true reflection of what happened everywhere and we need to acknowledge that also. You're right also that the government did win confidence in the Dáil this evening and as I said in my contribution to the confidence motion earlier on we would be extremely foolhardy and wrong as a government if we didn't acknowledge that there is anxiety, there is fear and there is frustrations out there by the people that we represent and you don't have a monopoly on representation of people. Nobody does. Each one of us have received our own democratic mandate to be here for a period of five years and we may disagree in terms of how we address certain issues but this government is acutely aware of the current fuel crisis faced by all sectors of our society and that is why we have responded with the second sizable package in the space of a number of weeks to alleviate some of those pressures and unlike what you said this is not a half measure as you asserted in your motion. This when you combine the two packages is the most comprehensive package of any country in the EU and it's important to state as a government we don't have the luxury of coming forward with uncosted proposals. We have the responsibility not only to respond in the short term but also to manage the long-term economic stability of this country and if it wasn't for the proper and prudent management of the economy over the last number of years we wouldn't be in a position to make the interventions at the rate that we've had been able to do over the last number of weeks and I note that the Sinn Féin proposed motion is quick to state that the prices of fuels are high but fails to state the reason why the price of fuels are high. I wish to state unequivocally that the spikes in the price of fuels are not as the opposition would lead you to believe solely and exclusively to taxation. The price of fuel is determined by a number of factors most of which are outside of government's control including the wholesale market price, international market dynamics, international exchange rate impacts, distributional costs and retail pricing policy. Excess duty is calculated on a volumetric basis meaning that the cash value of the tax collected remains the same regardless of the price on the forecourt. What that means in the context of excess reductions is the state will collect significantly less excess for every litre of fuel sold and while VAT operates as an ad valorem tax and therefore VAT receipts do increase in the price of a commodity increases, the figures that have been quoted in the Dáil and in the media by certain members of the opposition has been disingenuous, has been off the mark and has been done in a calculated way to instill fear and show division and exploit the legitimate fears and concerns of members of our community. The government does not seek nor want high fuel prices. Higher energy prices creates higher business input costs, this creates higher prices for goods and services and that impacts everybody. Previously we had called from opposition benches for things like price caps. This would be extremely expensive and an untargeted measure. For any good or service price controls below the market price would impose costs on retailers. In some cases this could be absorbed by a reduction in profitability, however in most cases this would result in losses for the retailer and given the very large increases in fuel prices imposing price controls on fuel retailers would render most unviable and they would exit the market. This would result in the state having to subsidise fossil fuel consumption directly at an enormous cost to the taxpayer. Introducing price cap on fuel to the level some opposition deputies have been suggesting could potentially cost billions. That money is being spent on essential services such as health, education, housing and policy, all things that different members of the opposition come in looking for further expenditure on. And for those who suggest that the government introduce a price cap on fuels, could I ask those very same deputies to provide a list of the public services they are suggesting to cut in order to pay for this. There is no magic money tree out there. We must underline and understand what we're seeing at the moment is a large increase in the wholesale market price of oil as a result of the supply shock caused by the conflict in the Middle East. This is compounding supply issues that we faced at the beginning of the war in Ukraine and that is what is driving up the increase in fuel costs. Sinn Féin's motion on fuel prices fails to mention that fact. This is an enormous challenge not just for Ireland but for every country around the world facing into the energy crisis. It's the government's job to strike an appropriate balance between keeping our economy moving and our public services funded while shielding the most vulnerable from the worst impacts of the energy shock. And I think it is fair to say that the measures taken by government are to support the sectors that are most adversely affected and those at risk of fuel poverty. Public funds are not infinite nor should they be spent on uncosted general measures as Sinn Féin has suggested in their motion. I'm not going to go through the list of supports that government has announced between the initial announcement over three weeks ago and the most recent announcement voted upon only in the last hour. The overall cost of the government-supported packages is in the region of 750 million euro. As I said already it is per capita the biggest and most comprehensive intervention of any of the countries in the euro. These supports are timely and are necessary and just as we said when we made the initial announcement these supports will be monitored, will be reviewed and kept under review. Because the truth is nobody on that side of the house and nobody on this side of the house can say with certainty what is going to happen with the war in the Middle East when we're going to see a return to the normal production and supply of oil in a global sense and that is why we have to ensure that we remain agile and responsive to the needs of the people we are honoured to represent in this house here today.