When I stood here this time last year, raising these questions with the Tánaiste, he was giving the same type of mantra: this would be a cost-of-living budget, and this had to be looked at in the round. People know their real-life experience in the last year. They feel worse off. They feel under more pressure. They have seen their grocery bills increase and their petrol, diesel and home heating oil increase. They have seen their rent increase. They have seen their mortgage increase. They have seen increases that the Government has brought forward in relation to student fees and other things that have put pressure on those families. They know the pressure that they are under. They are also looking at a government that is talking about billions of euro in surplus, and they are asking that some of that is used to support them now.

We have put forward a proposal time and again to the Government. We told the Government that it was absolutely wrong to withdraw those energy credits. There is a direct connection between what happened in households right across the State and the decision the Government took. When it decided to end energy credits, more families fell into arrears - that is just fact. The Tánaiste can shake his head all he wants. Let me tell him the facts. In February of this year, 316,000 households were in arrears. In the previous year, it was fewer than 60,000.

Deputy, the Tánaiste will respond.

That is a fact. The question I am asking is, will the Tánaiste commit to giving certainty to families and reintroducing energy credits to help people to pay their electricity bills?

Hear, hear.

The Deputy has been at this for a long time. A very long time, in fact. Let us not rewrite geopolitical history as to why energy prices have risen. It is not due to any decision taken in Dáil Éireann. It is because the Strait of Hormuz is closed. It is because there has been bombing of Iran.

It is not funny.

It is not funny. The Tánaiste should not laugh about it.

Neither the Deputy nor I took a decision. Let us not blow up the egos of people in this House. There is a geopolitical energy shock going on. It is the greatest energy shock in the history of the globe, according to the International Energy Agency. This has nothing to do with energy credits in the last domestic budget.

Of course it has. Does the Tánaiste think that taking away the energy credits did not have an impact?

If they made no difference, why did the Government introduce them?

Come on, Deputies.

Please, Deputy Doherty. Allow the answer to the question you asked.

May I answer the question?

That is just silly.

I know the Deputy likes to blame me for everything but the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a stretch.

Nobody is blaming the Tánaiste for that.

That is what has happened with the global energy market. The Deputy asked whether the Government would use some of the surpluses to assist the people. We have the largest intervention in the European Union. It is eight times larger than the intervention in France.

I thank the Tánaiste.

That is one of the reasons, when we look at petrol and diesel prices across the European Union, that Ireland is not in the top ten. Help is on the way. There will be more help in 12 days.

Hear, hear.