The Government's policy is always to make the little person pay.

Nonsense.

Whatever it is, be it water charges, property charges, parking charges or carbon taxes, the small person always pays-----

Everybody pays.

What about the people of north Kerry?

-----but the Government never asks the polluting corporations to pay. They get away scot-free. When they lobby the Government, it states it will block Deputy Bríd Smith's Bill to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

What about people living in rural areas?

The Government states it will install a terminal that will lock us into the use of toxic fracked gas for decades to come at a time when, by the way, the British energy regulator has told the Government that it can use British gas up until 2035, by which time we should have reduced our use of that fossil fuel.

Look around.

Where are the grants to make it possible for somebody who needs to have his or her home insulated, who is living in a damp and cold home but does not have the money to insulate it? The Government wants to tax such a person because he or she does not have enough money to do the work.

They will actually have more money.

The Government always blames the small person and never takes on the corporations. One hundred corporations are responsible for 70% of global emissions. Where are the taxes on them? Where are the penalties to make them change their behaviour? The carbon tax which has failed to reduce emissions to date is the only measure about which the Government talks. On everything else such as public transport, it privatises and lets fares to go up. It is not serious about tackling climate change. It is merely using it as an excuse to attack ordinary people.

It is difficult to have a rational debate with somebody when he or she does not want to see the facts. If the Deputy wants to look at what we are doing to have warmer homes and cheaper energy bills, since 2016 we have increased the funding available for home upgrades threefold. That is the first point.

It is still unaffordable.

In 2020 an allocation of €146 million, a €29 million increase on the figure for last year, will be used to upgrade 24,000 homes and businesses, yet the Deputy is saying we are doing nothing.

With reference to the Shannon liquefied natural gas, LNG, plant - it is important to make this point because the Deputy does not want to hear it because it suits him to misrepresent the facts - concern has been expressed about it. It was designated as a project of common interest by the European Commission for six years in 2013 and again in 2015 and 2017. The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton, has said he will not support any grant application made by Shannon LNG to the Connecting Europe facility until a security of supply review has been completed and considered by the Government and the Dáil. He has also asked the European Commission to review the implications of importing LNG, both conventionally and unconventionally extracted, into the European Union in terms of sustainability and having a secure and competitive European energy policy.

The Minister has left it on the projects of common interest list.

The Minister has indicated that he will carry out a comprehensive energy security review which will also consider scientifically from whom and where fossil fuels are sourced during the transition to having a carbon neutral economy.