I just want to remind the farmers, fishermen, agri-contractors and silage contractors who are working very hard that what the Government thought of them was the sum total of 2 cent of a reduction in March. In case they had forgotten, I will remind them of it again today. I will also remind the Taoiseach that on the Monday and Tuesday night before the Government gave the reduction the cost of diesel and petrol actually went up by more then than the Government reduced it on the Wednesday. I also remind him that the reduction was more than evaporated in the past four trading days when the cost of diesel and petrol went up by more than the Government brought it down last March. What the Government did was futile and very small. At a recent meeting the Taoiseach was one of the strongest and most forceful voices saying that we should cut off the fuel coming from Russia.

That is a debate for another time. However, when the Taoiseach came back, he was involved in a meeting in which he said that one of the results we could have in this country is that the people would have to face a scenario in which all but 100 stations would have to shut. We would like to know where those 100 are and how many of them are dispersed evenly around the country.

The Taoiseach totally ignored the question about the Minister, Deputy Ryan, in terms of the misleading comment. The Taoiseach owes it to every Deputy in this House to clarify whether a person who needs money can go to a social welfare office and say he or she cannot afford the fuel for his or her car, bus, van, tractor or lorry. Can that person say he or she was told by the Minister that he or she could come to the office for help? Will that person get help? The Taoiseach has to answer that question. All the smart talking about it will not let the Taoiseach get away without answering that clearly. It is a simple "Yes" or "No".

I remind the Deputy that he is criticising me for facilitating the Green Party and the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to come into Government. If I recall, at the time, there was no one more relieved than Deputy Healy-Rae that we formed a Government. His only exhortation to me was that it would go the full five years and not four years.

Is that a good answer for a Taoiseach to give to this House, in all fairness?

What the Minister, Deputy Ryan, is saying, as the Deputy knows well-----

It is the smart answers that will finish the Taoiseach.

-----is that the social welfare system is there for anybody who is in genuine hardship to go to seek assistance. That is well known. That is what the Minister, Deputy Ryan, was referring to. It is wrong to take his words out of context and endeavour to undermine a Minister of integrity. The Deputy may not agree with the Minister's ideas and he has been in denial of climate change and a whole load of things, without question.

That is not true.

The bottom line is that people are under pressure. There is no doubt about that. It has been caused by Putin's war. There is no doubt about that.

They were under pressure long before the war.

What happened at the European Council was a European-wide decision. We are not dependent on Russian oil and gas imports. Other countries are and they took much more difficult decisions that we did. We cannot condone the war. I hope the Deputy is not saying we should take no action against Russia. We must keep pressure on Putin's regime to stop this war. We cannot just look after ourselves all of the time. The attitude the Deputy seems to have articulated today is mé féin first and to hell with the people of Ukraine. That is not good enough.

Is taking care of people not good enough?

The European Union has correctly decided to put sanctions on the importation of Russian gas and oil. Our task is to alleviate pressure on people in this country. The forthcoming budget will give us an opportunity to do that in a strategic way that does not lead to runaway inflation again. We cannot go back to the 1970s and cause second-round and third-round inflationary impacts. If we were to follow the Deputy's advice every month-----

Taxation is causing it.

-----we would do exactly that.