We welcome three people, the Rev. Karen Sethuraman, Ben Collins and Claire Mitchell, who gave a fascinating presentation today on Protestant perspectives on constitutional change. They are very welcome here today.

The measures the Taoiseach brought forward yesterday to address soaring fuel prices are not good enough. He has short-changed working people, people with little or no support, working every hour that God sends and still struggling to get by. He short-changed them on diesel, he short-changed them on petrol and he completely abandoned the 750,000 households who rely on home heating oil. Most of these families do not receive the fuel allowance. They have seen the price of home heating oil double in a matter of weeks. What was the Taoiseach's offer to them? It was a 2 cent reduction per litre and a lousy €20 off a fill of oil that has skyrocketed to around €1,700. That is what families are dealing with in the here and now. That took some neck, all the more so given that this lousy €20 will be taken back when the Government increases carbon taxes in a couple of weeks.

Last night, the Taoiseach had the opportunity to change course and to do right by these households, but instead he dug in. Sinn Féin proposed an amendment to the financial resolution that would give proper relief on petrol and diesel, completely remove excise and strip carbon tax from home heating oil, but the Government voted that solution down. It would not budge.

Clearly, households being able to afford to heat their homes is not a priority for Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil. Their actions yesterday revealed their true priorities. For all the lip service, for all the tea and sympathy, yesterday, they had a real chance to make a big difference for hundreds of thousands of households hammered by soaring prices, and they chose to leave them behind.

Previously, I have told the Taoiseach about a 94-year-old woman on a fixed income whose heating oil bill doubled in days. She is now faced with paying an extortionate bill or being cold. I have also told the Taoiseach about the mother who received a quote for her fill of oil and did not know if she would have enough money left to get that week's shopping. These are the people the Taoiseach has abandoned. What has he to say to them today? Yesterday, he told them that they were on their own. Remember that almost 500,000 households already could not afford electricity or gas bills, yet with his eyes wide open the Taoiseach will push many households who rely on home heating oil into desperate situations - more stress, more pressure, more hardship.

Tá teaghlaigh a bhraitheann ar ola teasa tí tréigthe ag Fianna Fáil agus Fine Gael. D'fhág an Rialtas na teaghlaigh seo i gcruachás gan aon fhaoiseamh. Níl sé maith go leor.

Households who rely on home heating oil matter. They need support, but the Taoiseach has thrown them under the bus. How could he think it is good enough to treat these families in this way? It is not right. It is not fair. Sinn Féin has provided the Taoiseach with the solution: to completely remove excise duty and strip out carbon tax from home heating oil. That is what the Taoiseach should do to give these families real relief because he cannot leave them on their own.

Ní aontaím leis an Teachta. Mar a dúirt mé inné, tá an Rialtas ag déanamh gach aon iarracht cabhair agus tacaíocht a thabhairt do dhaoine, go háirithe na daoine is boichte agus ar ioncam íseal sa tír seo. Sin a dhein muid inné leis an bpacáiste a d'fhoilsíomar.

I disagree fundamentally with the Deputy in her assessment. The bottom line is that Sinn Féin voted against a reduction in diesel of 20 cent per litre last evening. Sinn Féin voted against a 15 cent reduction in petrol and a 3 cent per litre reduction in green diesel, and also voted against the NORA levy, or will, in terms of its commitment.

No, they did vote against it last evening. They voted against the reduction.

We are voting against something we do not even know about.

If they had won last night, there would be no reductions at all.

We did win last night.

That is the logical conclusion of their position. No attempt this morning is going to change that fact. We put forward measures last evening by resolution to reduce the cost of petrol and diesel, and Sinn Féin opposed it and voted against it. That was the wrong thing to do. It sums up their approach. In Northern Ireland, they cannot make up their minds. Two Sinn Féin Ministers are in charge of this area. There is an absolute absence of any decision-making, an absence of any clarity. They cannot make up their minds on how to allocate the money to help people in Northern Ireland. It is pathetic, absolutely pathetic, and they blame somebody else, of course, which they always do.

The bottom line is that there is a war which is having enormous implications for energy supply. It is well documented. No government in the world can compensate every single person in society as a result of that war. All of the advice is that you target the resources you are allocating to a crisis of this kind, and that they are temporary measures. It is also to keep in mind that things could get worse over the next number of months, and that we need to hold in reserve our resources, both for the budget for next year and for making sure we maintain investment in services like education and health, but that we do our best now to ease the pressure on people. Extending the fuel allowance by four weeks enables us to reduce the pressure on working families, and up to 470,000 families will benefit from that extension over four weeks of the fuel allowance. Most people will also benefit from the reduction in diesel and petrol that Sinn Féin voted against and opposed, and people will benefit from the NORA levy also. In the broader area, of course, in the last budget, we increased way above inflation the social protection measures, pensions and the household benefits package - quite substantially.

Deputy McDonald keeps talking about carbon tax. God knows, over the last number of years, it has been incredibly difficult to find out where Sinn Féin stands on carbon tax. Every year, when we do a budget, Sinn Féin does its alternative budget. What is in its alternative budget? All the revenue from carbon tax. So, when it suits Sinn Féin for performative and demonstrative purposes, such as this crisis, it suddenly wheels out its supposed opposition to the carbon tax. However, when it comes to the budget next October, it will have a budget alternative to ours, and it will include carbon tax revenue. It is so hypocritical about it. That is the damage that it would do. Carbon tax is essential to guarantee ring-fenced funding for the retrofitting of homes, the warmer homes initiative and the retrofitting of local authority housing, all of which will help working people to permanently reduce their bills into the future.

This year alone, €173 million will be allocated out of that fund to farmers on environmental farming schemes under the ACRES programme, which is 60% funded by the Government.

Níl an Rialtas ag déanamh faic. Níl sé ag éisteacht ar chor ar bith. We could not be clearer in our position. For the avoidance of any confusion, the Government's half-baked measures are not enough. We will not support measures that leave 750,000 households high and dry. They are real people, real families, who today now worry about how they will pay their home heating bill. The Taoiseach has no answer for them. We had the answer. We provided him with the opportunity to do the right thing, yet he failed to do so.

We see a rerun of the Taoiseach's politics again. For all the auld guff and his performative efforts, he does not care about working people. In the budget he spoke about, he spent €9 billion and not a shilling for working people - not a shilling for the people who do not get the supports he claims. They have been left high and dry.

I put it to the Taoiseach again: we have given him a specific measure in respect of home heating oil that affects hundreds of thousands of households.

The Taoiseach to respond.

I ask him again to adopt our proposal.

You are way over time, Deputy. The Taoiseach to respond.

Adopt the Sinn Féin solution and give these families the relief and support they deserve.

Sinn Féin's solution is billions, billions and more billions every month of the year. No matter what crisis arises, throw billions at it. That is its response. It has no substance as a party, absolutely none. Whatever issue arises, it just throws money at it. That is the answer to it. That is the incoherence of its response as a party - hopelessly incoherent, no substance to its policy, no clarity. There is an absence of any decision-making capacity, as demonstrated by the Deputy's party in Northern Ireland, and she controls it all. She has made that very clear. That is exactly what happens. She blames somebody else.

You.

That is the position of Sinn Féin and has been-----

That is absolute waffle.

What will the Taoiseach do for people on home heating oil?

------during the Ukrainian crisis, likewise, where it has a similar destructive approach also.

Why do you not answer the question?

Deputy, please, have respectful discourse. Appreciate that your time is up.

I am asking him to answer the question.

It will be a long time before Deputy Carthy will ever be leader of Sinn Féin and this is not his moment.

Answer the question.

Deputy Carthy had his opportunity with his counterpart. We came forward-----

With nothing

-----with a package last evening which will reduce the cost of petrol and Sinn Féin voted against it.

The Taoiseach voted against the proposal.

Sinn Féin voted against the reduction in the price of diesel and petrol, which is quite extraordinary.

God help us if Sinn Féin ever gets the cheque book.

It is not Deputy Grealish's money.