I move:
That Dáil Éireann demands the withdrawal of the increase in the price of petrol imposed by the Government on 4th December, 1974.
The performance in this House last Wednesday evening was, in our opinion, the greatest example we have ever seen of conceit, deceit, confusion and disarray on the part of the Government and a complete ignoring of ordinary democratic principles. We on this side of the House, on every possible occasion since October, 1973, have endeavoured to awaken the Government to the existence of and the consequences of an energy problem. Over this entire period we have failed to see any indication whatever that the Government understood the problem. As a result of last week's events, we have more reason than ever to believe that the Government are incapable of understanding the problem with which they are faced.
Last Wednesday night in this House was a scandal and, conceding this debate today, does nothing to lessen that scandal. For months now various Ministers have reacted to criticism in a touchy and crotchety manner and none more so than the Minister for Finance who persistently reacts with snide selective statements inside and outside the House. An example of this was the use of statistics relating to sales and registrations of particular types of large vehicles and the growth of the registration of these vehicles since 1967. The Minister might as well be quoting statistics proving that the existence of stage coaches was no longer necessary because it would be as irrelevant as this statement. I cannot see how any self-respecting keeper of the national purse, as the Minister for Finance is, could continue in that office after the display of ignorance shown by his statement that petrol is carrying 24p per gallon in taxation when it is sold to external residents. How that affects our balance of payments in the way the Minister has suggested I do not know.
If one looks at the correspondence columns of any of the national newspapers one will see that the ordinary man in the street has now come to realise that the Minister for Finance is not able to tell a credit from a debit. We should dismiss the whole episode with contempt but, unfortunately, we cannot do that because we are still stuck with the legacy of 15p per gallon added to the price of petrol. This still exists and we cannot go away from that. We have put down our motion in order to get rid of this savage increase imposed by the Minister. I now propose to prove that there is deceit involved.
The Minister has the total cost of all oil imports and products at his disposal and he knows that it is deceitful to use the selective comparison of petrol prices here with those existing in other countries without also taking into consideration the charges which consumers of all oil products are obliged to pay. It is deceitful also to say that the petrol element in our oil imports bill has increased to a greater extent than other oil products imported. The increase, for example, of from £7 million to somewhere between £30 million and £40 million for the ESB alone this year in the cost of heavy fuel oil shows the extent to which this deceit has gone and how deceitful the whole operation has been.
Petrol represents less than 20 per cent of the volume of oil products consumed. Heavy fuel oil represents 45 per cent and of this the ESB consume nearly half. It is a deceit to say that it is expected to accrue £27½ million based on a hypothesis which, having regard to Irish conditions, will not be sustainable. The Minister is just slavishly following his counterpart in Britain without having regard to the difference in infrastructure between Britain and Ireland. This is something which the Minister has failed to consider. It is also deceitful of the Minister to say that his action will encourage the use of public transport. Great Britain, for example, has a population density more than five times greater than the population denisty here. It is, therefore, impossible, unless the Minister intends to increase the CIE deficit about which we heard so much last week to more than £30 million in order to make public transport competitive with private transport. Because of the infrastructure of our country this would be necessary.
It follows that the action of the Minister will affect the rural areas to a greater degree than the people of the bigger cities. Where will the regional policy go from here and where will it lead us? It is also a deceit to use statistics on a global basis to show that a negligible effect on the cost of living will result. The real effect will probably be 2½ to 3 per cent on the cost of living. Taken in relation to the wages, people will have to spend an extra £1 per week at least for essential travelling expenses to and from their work. A man earning £40 per week is compelled to pay £1 extra per week for his transport to work because of the rise in the cost of petrol.
It is also deceitful to suggest that by punishing the consuming public it is possible to persuade those who are punished that it is only being done for their own good. The Minister should at least be charitable and say that this was all done in ignorance but that is not so. It is also deceitful to extract such an amount of taxation in such an undemocratic fashion. The Minister probably hopes that with the use of the cynical public relations machine used by the Government that the people will forget what has happened with the result that he will avoid the need for accountability in the forthcoming budget. We do not intend to forget and I feel confident that the people have no notion of forgetting it.
I do not believe it is possible that the Minister could have deceived himself to this extent. The Minister should tell us the real reason for his action and give the House an exact estimate of the revenue he expects from this action. My investigations suggest that the Minister will gather between £33 million and £37 million from this action. I have shown that the reasons given by the Minister for this action cannot be sustained. The sales to motorists from Northern Ireland are a benefit to our balance of payments and everybody appreciates this fact. I do not believe the Minister has any means of providing public transport at competitive costs. Because of the essential nature of most of the motoring the Minister will not achieve by this means any reduction in petrol consumption. A car is an essential part of our life; it is essential to the lower paid people.
Many people in my constituency, Clare, have no option but to travel 30 miles to and from work daily by car. This is not peculiar to Clare alone. It happens in all the western counties and, indeed, in counties like Meath which is represented by the Minister for Local Government. How the Minister is going to provide public transport on a scale mentioned in his statement is beyond the comprehension of everybody. The Minister has also ignored the effect his action will have on goods delivery. The Minister mistakenly said that most goods vehicles use diesel but it is an undeniable fact that goods vehicles up to two ton are practically all petrol driven.
The Minister has added to the general confusion and lack of confidence by such a desperate measure taken for the sake, to use his own words, of saving in the region of £3 million in our balance of payments on our total oil import figures. The Minister for Finance, and the Minister for Transport and Power, know that there are other and far more beneficial means available to them. The Minister for Finance, and his colleagues, spoke about studies and reports of various committees but the sad fact is that nothing has happened to materially change the fundamental weakness in our energy structure. I challenge the Minister to produce evidence that it is otherwise. Undoubtedly, there is a saving to be achieved by more efficient maintenance of equipment and, in some cases, new installations but it is time the Minister and his colleagues in Government did something about the establishment of a refinery here, which could yield us more benefit than any other step—I would say, conservatively, £20 million per annum on our balance of payments. In one stroke this would certainly save us more than seven times what the Minister hopes to save by the imposition of the 15p per gallon of petrol announced last week. It is now 15 months since the Minister's colfidenc leagues first mentioned this. What has happened since? Absolutely nothing. What have the Government done in the last 14 or 15 months to insist on the establishment of a refinery in this country? We do not need a huge complex of a refinery. All that is required is a refinery on the lines of Whitegate, but much more modern in every way. Whitegate is refining already approximately 50 per cent of our oil consumption. If such were done, then the Minister for Industry and Commerce would be in a position at least to regulate the price of all oil products in this country—oil products right across the board—and would be in a position to save us more than £20 million per annum. The Minister talks about £2 million to £3 million to be reaped from his savage increase announced last week.
In this time of emergency it is a national scandal that the report commissioned long ago from An Foras Forbartha on the siting of an oil refinery should be delayed. There is no sign of this report. In the climate of emergency with regard to oil in which we have been living for the past 14 or 15 months it is a real scandal that this report has not appeared. Could the Minister for Local Government not do something to expedite its production? Where is this report? In the Minister's own constituency there are thousands of constituents suffering from the lack of action by a section of his Department in regard to the production of that report. We want to know when we can expect this report.
The Minister has said that the whole oil energy question constitutes a grave problem. How does the Minister propose tackling this problem? How does he hope to gain control over it if he does not tackle it at the very roots and get away from the total dependence, which his colleagues admitted last year, of this nation on the multinational oil companies. It is possible so to do. The first essential is the erection of a new oil refinery. It is essential now and would be even more essential in the future for the oil resources we hope will be yielded from our south coast. But we are already 14 or 15 months behind. It takes three years from the erection of an oil refinery to have it in production. In case the Minister is interested in cost, the cost of the one about which I speak would not exceed £80 million. Bearing in mind the total affect it would have on our energy policy, the financing of such a refinery should not present great difficulties. It could involve also some of the semi-State bodies totally dependent on oil, such as the ESB and Aer Lingus.
But at present, even without such a refinery, it would be possible to save at least £20 million on our balance of payments. Is the Minister aware that at present, on the Gulf, it is possible to purchase crude oil at 60 dollars per ton? This is a fact. I am even exaggerating a little, for the simple reason that Thailand is at present buying that crude oil at 54 dollars per ton. The cost of freight to a European port would be 14 dollars per ton. Let me assure the Minister that there is no difficulty in arranging this freight because oil tankers are probably easier to charter at present than the hiring of a taxi in the city of Dublin. Fourteen dollars is the cost to a west European port, and I am not talking about Milford Haven or any such port. Refining, insurance and shipment of the product to Dublin port from a European port would cost a total of six dollars per ton, giving a total of 80 dollars per ton at the tank in Dublin. At present the average price of oil, ex-tank at Dublin port, is in excess of 100 dollars per ton. I have illustrated for the Minister a way in which the same products could be produced at a price of 80 dollars and I am prepared to back up those figures with anybody at any time.
The Minister might ask the question: why bring it to a European port? It can be refined on the Continent of Europe for the amount I have quoted. I would even go so far as to say that, if the Minister or his colleagues are not capable of doing it, I would be prepared to stick out my own neck and say that I would be prepared to make the arrangements to prove that I am not merely talking off the top of my head about the whole matter. That is one way in which the problem could be tackled at its very roots. Other countries less developed than ours, such as Thailand, are able to do so. Why can we not go out? We are still entitled to regard ourselves as a favoured nation in the Arab world. But I doubt if that will continue for long when one examines some of the oil sharing agreements we have with countries that are at present putting in 10 per cent more armaments into Israel than they were doing this time last year. If the Minister has the will, there is no reason why he cannot tackle the problem at its very roots instead of having introduced the savage increase of last week and, undoubtedly, not for the reasons he gave in this House.
On the Minister's own admission it is a grave problem. But it is the responsibility of the Minister and of the Government to see to it that this grave situation will not be allowed persist. The Government have the facts. At least, if they have not, they should have. They are completely ignoring methods of correcting the situation and the country is entitled to know why. We are talking about a situation of national survival, at least that is the way the Minister presented it here last week. What we say is: act as a Government; stop the political pussy-footing, if you like, about oil refineries, about a minority of self-styled environmentalists or whatever one likes to call those people who, I believe, are not in the least concerned about the national good but who react in an emotional way with a total disregard for the scientific facts of the emergency facing our country at present.
Another matter mentioned is oil conservation. Were we on this side of the House presented with a genuine energy conservation plan we would support it. I was the first to mention this more than a year ago in several debates. But what we were presented with under this heading by the Minister last Wednesday has nothing whatever to do with energy conservation. In fact it is nothing more than a panic measure on the part of a Government whose credit appears to have run out completely, who undoubtedly need every penny they can lay their hands on before the sheriff moves in on them. The Minister had better tell the people of this House and of the country the truth and the real reasons for his action of last week. If I may summarise; energy conservation is a very worthy exercise. There is no doubt about that. I would suggest that energy cost is the primary problem. Leaving aside the building of an oil refinery we are putting before the Minister a way by which he can reduce costs by £20 million. The next step we can expect from the Minister is the reintroduction of those controls over the price of petrol which the Government dismantled on December 12th last. This will be an effort to prevent a follow-through from what is about to happen in Britain—a massive increase in the price of petrol and, perhaps, in other oil products also. Because of our price control structure having been dismantled, all the multi-national oil companies need do is give seven days notice to the Minister for Industry and Commerce of their intention to impose the same increases here as are expected in Britain.
Such notice is likely to be issued to the Minister before Christmas. It will hardly give any pleasure to the consumer to toast the health of the Minister for Finance and of the Government during the coming festive season. Instead of paying the present savage price for petrol we are likely to be paying much more in the new year. Surely such a situation could not help to reduce the cost of living. We are tied to the outer UK zone in respect of any price rises in oil products but if the Minister chooses to ignore the advice that is being given to him he can only be said to be acting in a criminally negligent manner in regard to the people's welfare. The reasons given by the Minister for imposing the extra 15p per gallon on petrol have been shown to be false. In those circumstances the Minister must suspend the relative order and, instead, must be prepared to tackle the problem. It is inevitable that there will be an increase in the prices of oil products in the UK in the immediate future. If the Minister was prepared to remove this extra 15p from the price of petrol and promote petrol sales along the Border to Northern Ireland motorists, I would have no hesitation in saying that such action would bring him in the £3 million he is hoping to get from this measure. It would be necessary to sell only four per cent of our petrol consumption to petrol filling stations along the Border in order to bring in the amount being sought by the Minister.
This increase was imposed in a manner that was deceitful and arrogant. It showed a complete lack of consideration for democratic principles. Our people must bear the burden of the Minister's savage and ill-thought-out action. The Minister must be aware that because of the social structure of our society there are people in some areas who must travel distances of up to 30 miles to and from their places of employment. For most of these people there would be no regular public transport service available. There could hardly be a regular public transport service for the thousands of people who are engaged on shift work. Such people are faced with the prospect either of giving up work or of having to meet this huge increase in the cost of petrol. Cars to these people mean jobs. In many cases the increased cost will mean as much as £2 per week more in transport costs. This is a grave imposition on any working man whose transport may already be costing him £5 or £6 per week. How are these people supposed to survive such an imposition especially at a time of such rapid inflation and at a time of total non-activity on the part of the Government not only in this sphere but in many other areas also?
Every reason put forward by the Minister for the increase has been disproved out of hand not only by commentators writing in our newspapers but also by those who write letters to the papers and by the ordinary people in the street. Our purpose in tabling this motion is to have the 15p per gallon increase removed. In this we cannot be said to be destructive because I have put forward ways and means by which the Minister can save—that is, if he has the will and the capability of so doing —at least more than £20 million per year in our balance of payments bill for oil and oil products alone.