Yesterday we saw from the Government's dithering in explaining to householders how much it intends to force them to pay for water how the Government is oblivious to the hardships being inflicted on families across the State. It is not lost on those families that Labour had a famous advertisement released for the general election in 2011, when the party promised to protect the same families from the worst excesses of a right-wing Fine Gael single party Government. If I need to remind the Tánaiste, the advertisement warned that a one-party Labour Government would hike car tax, increase VAT-----

The Deputy means a one-party Fine Gael Government.

Yes, although there is not much difference these days, in fairness. I know our Labour Party colleagues struggle to differentiate. A one-party Fine Gael Government would hike car tax, increase VAT, cut child benefit, increase DIRT, hike the tax on wine by €1 and introduce a property tax of €238 per year. Three years on, every one of those commitments from Fine Gael has been introduced or is about to be introduced. There is little wonder as we travel the roads, highways and byways across the State that people ask us what is the point of the Labour Party being in Government.

The latest tax hike, introduced today with the full support of the Labour Party, is a hike in the carbon tax from €10 to €20 per tonne of solid fuel. As the Tánaiste knows, or should know, this will hit vulnerable people hardest, many living in rural communities, elderly citizens and the poorest and most marginalised in society. He should also know that people are already struggling to get by, just to make ends meet, without this extra €1.20 on a bag of coal. An increase of this nature will result in additional fuel poverty.

The fiasco surrounding the handling of the water tax shows that the Government is in crisis as it tries to contemplate how to save the blushes of the Labour Party from the anger of the electorate.

It is nothing to the crisis the Deputy’s lot is in.

It would suit the Tánaiste better-----

It would suit me better if the Deputy would put his question. He is over time.

Where is the Deputy’s Leader?

The Deputy is doing a Gerry Adams.

Recognising the disastrous impacts of these cuts and tax hikes that the Government has introduced, will the Tánaiste now show some genuine commitment to, and understanding of, the hard-pressed families by scrapping the doubling of the carbon tax introduced today?

I remind Deputies that when I ask them to finish I mean finish.

I could not hear the Ceann Comhairle with the heckling.

The Deputy could hear perfectly well. He need not try to cod me.

The Sinn Féin representative today chooses to raise as the Leader’s question hardship on a family. I am quite prepared to address that. The hardship that families have endured in this country over the past few years would be a hell of a lot worse if this Government had pursued the daft economic policies that the Deputy’s party had recommended to us. Instead of now being out of the bailout and instead of jobs being created and of at least being able to say to hard-pressed families, as we do, that we are in a position to improve things, the Deputy’s party would have plunged those families into a second bailout with possible reductions in payments, through social welfare or wages, of up to 30%. That is what the Deputy’s party would have done.

The Sinn Féin memory is very short and very selective.

The Tánaiste could do with a bit of memory.

On the issue of carbon tax, which the Deputy has raised, it is my recollection that Sinn Féin supported a carbon tax.

What question is the Tánaiste answering?

The carbon tax was not introduced today. It was introduced in 2010. This Government delayed the implementation of the carbon tax on solid fuels in the first instance until after the 2012-13 season and then we decided to introduce it in two phases, last year, 2013, with the implementation of the first €10 per tonne of carbon. The second phase is being introduced today, the second €10 on the tonne of carbon. That brings the tax on a tonne of carbon to €20. Fianna Fáil, in its programme for Government, the recovery document it produced in 2010, told us that it would increase the tax to €30 per tonne. The carbon tax being brought in now is 50% less than that which we inherited at the start of this Government.

We are very conscious of the impact of any rise in the price of fuel on any family. That is why we are maintaining, even in difficult financial circumstances, a fuel allowance regime to which €208 million a year is being committed. It is also why we have focused on providing permanent solutions to the problem of fuel poverty by investing in retrofitting houses to make them more energy efficient. More than €57 million has been allocated to fund efficiency grant programmes in 2014. This will lead to another 12,000 low income homes being made efficient. Maybe in the second part of my answer I can inform Deputy Doherty of the other measures being taken to reduce the burden of fuel costs on hard-pressed families.

Sinn Féin does not support, and the Tánaiste should not suggest that we do, the increase in the carbon tax taking effect from today, which the Government introduced in the Finance Bill last year.

Why did Sinn Féin vote for it?

We have provided a series of alternatives to this Government, comprising the Labour Party and Fine Gael, that it has rejected.

Name them.

The Tánaiste feels it is fit and proper to ask those many thousands of households across the State to pay additional tax on their bale of briquettes, or their bag of coal. The Tánaiste feels it is proper to ask families, whom I have met the length and breadth of this State, struggling to make ends meet, to pay an extra €1.20 on a bag of coal. Over the course of a year, if they burnt only one bag a week that would be approximately an extra €60. The Tánaiste may be oblivious to the fact that people are struggling because the commitments his party made before entering Government have not materialised. It has introduced every single one of the cuts it said Fine Gael would implement, and every tax hike it promised to protect against.

Would the Deputy please put his question?

It is currently at the later stages of signing, sealing and delivering the water tax.

This is not a time for making speeches. Would the Deputy put his question?

Will the Tánaiste stand up for ordinary people and stop the doubling of carbon tax, which is taking effect under his Government, his leadership, with the full support of the Labour Party today?

Families are suffering because of the recession we had, the collapse of the banking system, what happened in the property bubble and the bad decisions made by the previous Government, which Sinn Féin supported. Deputy Doherty is in no position to come in here and rant and rave about what hard-pressed families are suffering. He is the Deputy who, as a Member of the Seanad, told the then Government what a great idea he thought the bank guarantee was.

Facts.

The Labour Party and Fine Gael supported it and extended it.

Does he still think the bank guarantee is such a good idea, as he did in September 2008?

That was the end of the problem, not the beginning.

Anybody who got it so dramatically wrong on that occasion is in no position to lecture us on how to deal with the problem now.

Why did this Government extend it?

Fine Gael supported it.

One day Sinn Féin will say it is for a carbon tax and when it is implemented, it will say it is against it.

The Tánaiste should stand up for something for once in his life.

Another day Sinn Féin will say it is for a wealth tax and when that is implemented, it will say it is against it.

This reminds me of the water charges.

Every bit hurts. That was the advertisement that the Labour Party liked. It delivered it all, every single bit of it.

Who is hurting now? We accept and acknowledge that fuel poverty is an issue in this country.

The Tánaiste should check the Official Report.

That is why we have sought to-----

-----increase the cost of fuel.

-----address the issue of fuel poverty by introducing retrofitting in houses-----

-----by increasing the cost of fuel.

-----for example, the €30 million the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy O’Sullivan, has provided to provide energy efficiency in local authority houses in 2014.

It is a fantasy to think the Government can do that by increasing the cost of fuel.

That really is a good one.

Daft economics.

I remind Members that this is Leaders' Questions.

It is Leaders' answers.

It is designed for the Opposition to put a question to the Government of the day, not to make speeches on various issues. Deputies should please adhere to the rules of the House. If they want to change them, they can do so but I am here to implement them.