People are really worried about their electricity bills. On Monday, the SSE Airtricity price hike is going to kick in. That is hundreds of thousands of households that are going to be hit with a big jump in their bill. That comes, obviously, after the hikes we have seen from three other companies since the budget was announced last week - a budget in which the Government made a terrible decision to cut energy credits and do absolutely nothing for ordinary workers. We now have a situation where this month, more than 1 million households are facing big electricity price hikes. So many are now wondering what in the name of God they are going to do because they simply cannot pay them.

People have known for a long time that they are being ripped off. They are gouged by the energy companies and now they have the proof. The latest report from the International Energy Agency, IEA, is absolutely and utterly damning. It tells us clearly that these big companies are pocketing greater profits as wholesale prices fall, rather than passing them on to hard-pressed families. It will come as no surprise that Irish energy bills are now three times higher than the wholesale cost. In nearly every other EU state, the wholesale price drop is being passed on to customers. Households are getting a break in their bills, but it is just not happening here. Households in Ireland are being taken for a ride, used as cash cows by energy companies to fatten their record profits, and the Tánaiste's Government is sitting back and doing absolutely nothing about it.

Twice this week, the Taoiseach was asked a very simple question: what he will do to stop this rip-off. On both occasions, he could not answer the question. I am here to ask the Tánaiste what he is going to do to stop this energy rip-off? Any Government worth its salt presented with the hard evidence that we have, that its people are being so blatantly ripped off, would be right out in front, ready to take on the energy companies, but Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are happy to just sit back and let households get hammered. It is not just energy, either. It is food, rent, insurance, childcare. Costs are already through the roof and households are now facing the hardest price squeeze in 18 months.

The Tánaiste will have heard from people, as I have. I spoke to two young parents in Galway this week and they are out of their minds with worry. They were just about paying the bills last year, just about getting by, but recently they have had to rely on family members just to cover day-to-day costs. Both of these parents are working and this constant rip-off has left them with that sinking feeling that there is no end in sight. The pressure is so immense. The Government's promise to have their back and to help is broken. It is in tatters. During the general election, on live television, the Tánaiste said, "You told me cost of living is worrying you – that’s why we’ll lower taxes and help you with your bills." Then he turned around and did what he did last week in the budget, with no cost-of-living package, with a tax cut package of over €2.5 billion, but without a single break on income tax for ordinary workers - not a single red cent. What happened? Why did the Tánaiste break his promise? The cost-of-living crisis did not end. Runaway prices did not stop. The pressure on households has only gotten worse. The Tánaiste broke the promise because the election was over. We know it, they know it. The Tánaiste got what he wanted and following through just did not matter to him. We know that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments are always on the side of developers and big landlords, but this Government is increasingly looking like a government for the price gougers, on the side of the big energy companies as they squeeze every penny out of their customers. People are not going to stand for it.

People will not put up with being so blatantly ripped off. They want the Government to do its job. I have asked the Taoiseach twice now and I ask the Tánaiste: what will the Government do to stop this rip-off?

I will start by acknowledging the deeply upsetting incident that took place in a Tusla facility in Donaghmede yesterday. This is a shocking event. My thoughts and those of people right across the House and country are with all of those impacted by it, in particular the bereaved family and those injured. The loss of life is unconscionable. The focus must now be on the welfare and safety of the young people and staff at the facility. Tusla is working to put additional supports in place to do that. I also want to acknowledge the staff and members of An Garda Síochána who arrived at the scene yesterday. There is obviously an ongoing Garda investigation, but this is a horrific and deeply saddening incident which I wanted to acknowledge here.

I thank Deputy O'Farrell for the question. I hope she tells those people she meets across the country that only one party in Dáil Éireann proposed giving subsidies to the energy companies. It was not Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party, the Social Democrats, the Independents or anybody else here. The response of Sinn Féin in the last Dáil, its solution to the energy price situation, was to give taxpayers' money over to the energy companies.

Answer the question.

Steady, Tommy.

I am answering the question, Deputy.

Order.

The only other place that happened in the world was when Liz Truss was British Prime Minister. Sinn Féin's solution was to take hard earned taxpayers' money from young couples like those the Deputy met in Galway and give it to the energy companies, throw it away. That was never a good idea. I welcome the fact that the Deputy now acknowledges that it was not and is no longer pursuing that ridiculous, economically illiterate policy.

Order, please.

That was the choice on offer to the people in the last election.

You gave it to the vulture funds.

Sinn Féin's plan was to give money from taxpayers to the big energy companies and our plan was to consider permanent and sustainable ways of reducing costs. Again, I hope the Deputy tells people that we have taken measures in the budget to help them with the cost of energy. I am sure she tells them that we took a measure around reducing tax on energy in the budget. We decided to reduce the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% not just for one or two years or to the end of the year, but for five years. I hope the Deputy welcomes that. I am sure she does. We decided to reduce the VAT rate and make that permanent for five years. That is an important and practical tax reducing measure that we took in the budget.

It is like the student fees-----

The second thing we did-----

Order, please.

-----was to increase the fuel allowance to help people most at risk including, by the way, working people. I do not like the way the Deputy suggests helping people through social welfare is not helping working people. Many, many, many working families benefit from the fuel allowance situation.

Yes, the working poor.

We have increased the fuel allowance by €5. We have also extended it to more than 50,000 households, including people on the working family payment – the clue is in the name: the working family payment. Some 460,000 households will now benefit from the fuel allowance, more than a quarter of the households in the country. That is a practical measure that we took in the budget.

On top of that, to answer the Deputy's question directly, we have taken a very specific measure against the energy companies and price gouging by having a tax on the profits of energy companies which has yielded €271 million over a two-year period. We taxed the energy companies on their profits, but the Deputy left that out as well. On top of that, we reduced the PSO levy-----

Their profits are off the charts and the prices-----

-----for those on renewable energy.

The Government is doing nothing about it.

Deputy Gould, maybe one day they will give you a go at Leaders' Questions but today it is Mairéad so please let her do it. To try to help people with the cost of energy, we have applied a zero rate of VAT on the installation of solar panels, something people look for. We have reduced the rate of VAT on low emission heat pump heating systems. We have increased the number of additional needs payments. Energy costs are real, absolutely, and that is why we took a number of practical measures to help people in the budget and we targeted those measures at those most in need.

To be honest, and I get this all the time, sometimes I think the Tánaiste forgets that he is the Tánaiste and has been in government since 2011. We now have a situation whereby people are struggling more and more. Why? It is a direct result of the policies and budgets the Government continues to implement. The Tánaiste said during the general election that the Government would do this, that and the other because he knew the policies the Government implemented are making people worse off.

The Government's policies have resulted in 300,000 households being in arrears with their electricity bills. That is happening right now under the watch of the Government. We are going into the winter and people will be struggling even more because the Government has cut any supports. Instead of listing things the Tánaiste thinks other people could do or should have done, this is on him. This crisis is on him. He needs to help those people who are not able to pay their electricity bills and will now have increased electricity bills. People will suffer as a result of the cold winter and the Government is doing absolutely nothing.

That is just not true. I just told the Deputy what we are doing. She asked a very important question on a very important issue. The whole assertion of her question and the premise behind it was that we did nothing on energy. She stood up, and the record of the Dáil will show it, and said we did not reduce tax. I am telling her that we reduced value added tax on energy bills for the next five years in the budget. That is an error – one cannot use the L word in here, but it was the first mistruth the Deputy told.

Second, the Deputy said we did not help working families. We extended the fuel allowance to people who get a working family payment. That is a second mistruth the Deputy told.

The third thing she said is that the Taoiseach and I had not said what we will do in relation to energy companies. I told her we brought in a tax on their profits that has yielded €271 million over the past two years. The Sinn Féin plan was to hand over taxpayers' money to the energy companies. There was a clear choice in the last election. The people gave their verdict and they voted for centrist politics instead of Sinn Féin policies that would have bankrupted the nation and spent €4 billion more in the budget.

Unfortunately, we told the truth in the last election. That was our mistake.