The cost-of-living crisis is pushing households to the brink. Price hike after price hike has workers and families to the pin of their collars, with no sign of the spiralling costs coming down. It is plain to see that people cannot afford Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in government any longer. People are at their wits' end. Rents are soaring, mortgage interest rates are rocketing and grocery prices and energy bills keep shooting upwards. People cannot stretch any more. There is nothing else left to cut back on. Last month, research revealed that Irish electricity prices are the highest in Europe. Gas prices are the highest in Europe as well. This will come as no surprise to consumers who open their bills to see eye-watering amounts being demanded. Energy credits have been long spent and the Government is merely sitting on its hands.

I wish to tell the Minister about one lady's recent experience of this crisis. An elderly lady in County Laois, living alone after her husband sadly passed away last year, received an electricity bill for €760, a colossal amount that she simply cannot afford. She applied for an additional needs payment to help cover the cost. Shockingly, she was refused support because she put a small amount away from her pension over the past year to save for a headstone for her late husband's grave. She was forced to spend that money on the electricity bill instead of the headstone because of that refusal for help. Her husband's anniversary is approaching and she is distraught that she will not have that headstone for his grave on time. Yet, when her family called around to visit last night, they found her sitting in the dark, terrified of switching on the lights, worried sick about what the next bill might be and when these nightmare costs are going to end. This is appalling. What does it say about us and the society that we are living in under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that this is the lived reality for a lady of that age. Another older person let down by the Government is a 90-year-old woman in Dublin whose gas bills have gone from €200 to €600. She simply does not have the money for this. Unsurprisingly, she has fallen into arrears. After questioning the bills, she was threatened with disconnection. She is absolutely beside herself; she is 90 years of age.

A few weeks ago, Sinn Féin brought forward a plan to cut energy costs and cap them, which would have made a real difference to hard-pressed households but the Government blocked the plan and failed to offer up any solutions of its own. The Government acts like a spectator to the catastrophe unfolding for workers and families the length and breadth of this State. Instead of acting, it has abandoned people who need support now. From energy costs to food prices, spiralling rent and mortgage interest rates, it is clear that we cannot afford to have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government any longer. What will it take for the Government to get its act together? When will it give people the support they need to weather this cost-of-living crisis? What action will it take to cut energy costs and give households, like those two ladies and countless others, the much-needed break they need from ever-increasing costs?

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. She is absolutely correct on one matter: the cost-of-living crisis is real for households and families in urban and rural Ireland. That is why it requires action, not just at budget time but from this Government on a regular basis, which can be seen in a range of measures. In advance of Christmas, there were more than €4 billion worth of measures to help people with the cost of winter across a range of areas such as lump sum payments, weekly payment increases and tax reductions kicking in for working families in January. It will be seen shortly by families with children throughout the country, who will benefit from an increase in child benefit of an extra €100 per child next month. This is a Government which, by any objective measure, is acting and using the hard-earned money of the people, paid in taxes, to give a bit back and try to make things a bit easier.

It is really disappointing that the Deputy tried to suggest that the Government is sitting on its hands. You get used to it from the Opposition but it is simply not true. On energy, every household benefited from a €200 payment, not once or twice but three times in energy credits. We provided everybody on the fuel allowance with a top-up payment of a €400 lump sum, which Sinn Féin did not even fathom in its alternative budget. We did that before Christmas, accepting that it was coming into the winter. We extended eligibility for the fuel allowance. I note the two cases the Deputy shared and we think of them. I accept the struggles they face but I think of them, as she described them both, as older people. The measures taken by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, mean that 80,000 more older people will benefit from the fuel allowance under plans this Government has enacted. We are taking action every day. Beyond families, there is the energy scheme for business that we put in place and the decision to extend it so people have until the end of May. We will keep it under review to ensure more businesses can qualify in order to help small and medium-sized businesses across the country. We are taking real action. Those examples are just in the energy space; there are many other areas.

I do not doubt the Deputy's bona fides at all or her sincerity. I know her to be a hardworking public representative but I can only judge her on her party's policy, which is why I am surprised she mentioned energy because Sinn Féin had gone terribly quiet about it for a while. Usually, the Opposition can stand up and say whatever it wants and we never get to see how it plays out in the real world. Unfortunately for the Opposition, Liz Truss became the British Prime Minister, albeit for a very brief period.

The lettuce.

During that time, I do not know whether she stole Mary Lou's homework or Mary Lou stole hers but we ended up-----

What about Germany?

-----in a scenario in which it went ahead and did what Sinn Féin advised and brought in price caps.

They bust the country.

The Government is just the Tory Party.

In bringing in price caps, she managed to tank the pound.

There is a new form of republican tactic.

We will not follow the example of Liz Truss or introduce price caps.

If the farmers start a party, the Government will be in trouble.

He is telling the truth.

The Minister is misleading the Dáil.

Sinn Féin comes in here on a very regular basis and asks if we have seen the latest ESRI report. It regularly asks Ministers if they have seen what the ESRI said. We could probably paper the walls of this Chamber with ESRI reports Sinn Féin would like us to implement. Has Sinn Féin seen what the energy economist in the ESRI, Muireann Lynch, said only two weeks ago about the Sinn Féin proposal? It was not the Government or Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil or the Greens or whoever Sinn Féin wants to pick on today but the ESRI which stated, regarding price caps, "it means the energy providers can essentially jack their prices up as high as they want-----

The windfall tax. Introduce a windfall tax.

Do not shout him down.

-----because they have absolutely no incentive to try to contain those costs ... They know that it's all going to be covered by the Government". The only certainty Sinn Féin's plan would provide is the certainty that the woman in Laois and the woman in Dublin and everybody else watching this programme would have to put their hands in their pockets and hand their money over to the energy companies.

This is why-----

It is today they cannot give it, not next month or next year.

I thank the Minister.

The Minister cannot-----

Deputy Gould, please.

This is why we will not bring in a plan that is bad for the economy-----

Misleading the Dáil again.

-----bad for households and bad for the climate. The only people who would benefit would be the energy companies. Instead, what we will do-----

The time is up.

I was shouted down. What we will do instead is legislation for a windfall tax to hit companies where it hurts-----

Tell the truth. Time to move aside.

Please, the time is up.

-----in the pocket and on their profits.

Wait now. On both sides of the House, I ask for a little bit of order and respect. I call Deputy Clarke.

No engaging in any amount of misinformation is going to put a headstone on the grave of that woman's husband. This is a simple fact. Equally, it will not put money in the bank account of people like that other lady in Dublin who has a colossal gas bill. The Minister mentioned child benefit and this aspect will be welcomed by all parents because they already have the bills these funds will have to go towards paying. It will not be for future bills that will arrive. Lord knows, it is not even to buy their children a pair of shoes over the summer. It is to pay the bills already sitting there.

There is, therefore, no future plan. This is where we have heard the Government come up with this notion of suggesting that people can hang on until the budget in October and then it will see what it can do then. It simply is not good enough. The message coming from the Government now is very clear to everybody across this State struggling in the here and now. The Government has no interest in tackling the struggles people are facing. It has no interest in assisting them in their time of need. The energy credits were mentioned. They were gone before the money ever landed in anyone's bank account or came directly off the bill. The question, therefore, again stands. What is the Government going to do to cut energy costs and to give households struggling in the here and now a break from these costs?

Hear, hear.

There is a very simple answer to this-----

Nothing.

-----and it is that we are going to introduce a windfall tax.

One year later.

Deputy Clarke and her party were in favour of this a couple of weeks ago and still are now I think, but I am not sure.

Deputies, please.

We are going to introduce a windfall tax.

We worked at a European level under the leadership of the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, in November. We published legislation in March, which we referred to the relevant Oireachtas joint committee. With the co-operation and support of the Deputy and her party for the windfall tax, I hope we will pass it before the summer recess. We will introduce it this year and we will say to these companies, in a very practical way, that if they are going to continue to profiteer on the back of Irish people, then we are going to tax them for it.

Will this be the same as retail companies?

This is what we are going to do. What we are not going to do is Trussenomics, where it is decided to put in price caps that-----

Misleading.

I know the Deputies opposite do not care what I say, but the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, has suggested this would benefit disproportionately highest-income earners. Did the Deputies see this? It was also suggested that it would actually encourage energy companies to "jack up" their prices, that it would be bad for the climate, bad for energy supply in the European Union-----

Hear them now-----

Be honest.

-----and that it was tried in the nearest country and it did not work. We will stand with those families mentioned. We have extended the fuel allowance and we have done the lump sum payments. We will continue to support those families. The Deputies opposite can continue to do their sound bites. Unfortunately for them, we saw how this approach worked in the UK.

I thank the Minister. The time is up now. I call Deputy Cairns.