Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said the government must halt increases in taxes on petrol and diesel.
On Friday, the Dáil sat for one hour as the government had to vote through a change on fuel prices.
With the Dáil not due to return from summer break until mid-September, the Dáil sat briefly to allow the government to vote through a measure to remove excise duty on fuel prices.
McDonald claimed, “the Dáil has been recalled because the government got this wrong.”
“Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the independents intended to increase petrol and diesel prices from September 1st. Sinn Féin said no and I asked the Taoiseach to recall the Dáil to stop these increases,” she said, but said that the government “still hasn’t got the message.”
“Their answer is not to halt these fuel tax increases, but simply to reschedule them. It now proposes increases from November through to February,” she said.
“We are living in extraordinary circumstances. The international factors driving fuel prices sky high are still with us, as is the enormous pressure this places on workers and families,” McDonald stated.
Acknowledging that the government cannot control international geopolitical events or oil prices, the government “absolutely controls the taxes it places on petrol and diesel.”
“People need to know definitively that while fuel prices soar, government will not pile further tax increases onto those already struggling. Not now and not in November.”
McDonald said “we support stopping the September and October increases. But we will not support a plan that simply moves those increases to November, December, January and February.”
“The government must keep these taxes off while fuel prices remain high, and Budget 2027 must deliver meaningful cost-of-living relief,” she said.
“People deserve certainty. They deserve a break. They deserve a government that stands with them – not one that has to be dragged by Sinn Féin into doing the right thing,” McDonald asserted.