{"id":390067,"date":"2026-04-09T15:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390067\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T15:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:49:11","slug":"out-of-touch-limerick-td-blasts-govts-increased-tax-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390067\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Out of touch&#8221;: Limerick TD blasts Govt&#8217;s increased tax take"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s the Government that\u2019s wrong to criticise the fuel costs protestors, not the protestors themselves, Independent Ireland TD Richard O\u2019Donoghue has said, adding that the Government is \u201cso far out of touch with reality\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI reckon that they\u2019re disconnected because they\u2019re used to having their drivers drive them around, their cars are always full and they don\u2019t have to pay for it. Their fridges are always full and everywhere they go people are looking after them,\u201d the Limerick TD said, who has been on the ground at protests in his home county.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat would happen if they had to look after themselves and fend for themselves and try and make ends meet like every working person that\u2019s paying tax in this country, and even the vulnerable people that can\u2019t work? What would they do,\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n<p>Mr O\u2019Donoghue\u2019s comments came in response to the news that<a href=\"https:\/\/assets.gov.ie\/static\/documents\/77502a28\/Fiscal_Monitor_March_2026.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Exchequer returns showed an increased tax take<\/a>, including from taxes on fuel, in the first three months of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The figures from the Department of Finance showed that VAT receipts amounted to \u20ac3.3 billion in March, which was up by \u20ac0.2 billion (7.4 percent) on March last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Cumulatively, VAT receipts of \u20ac8.0 billion are ahead of last year by \u20ac0.4 billion (5.3 percent), the Department said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saw a statement by Miche\u00e1l Martin and Simon Harris, blaming the protesters and saying that they were wrong. It\u2019s the government that are wrong,\u201d Mr O\u2019Donoghue said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor at a time of inflated fuel costs, that they are capitalising and taking excess tax. That\u2019s what\u2019s wrong. The people of Ireland are not wrong. The people of Ireland are barely surviving and they\u2019re trying to do their best for their families. And they have a government that is so far out of touch with reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Independent Ireland TD said that businesses wouldn\u2019t need a package of support from Government if they \u201ccurtailed the taxes\u201d that are causing the protests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo on one hand they\u2019re closing businesses down and putting them into debt, and then they\u2019re trying to give them a package that they won\u2019t actually get anyway,\u201d Mr O\u2019Donoghue said, adding that the T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris was poorly placed to understand business relief \u201cas a person that has never been in business himself\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo what I say to Simon Harris is very simple: You look at it this way \u2013 you take the same fuel price that you were getting five weeks ago, taxable. And you just take the tax \u2013 we\u2019ll say \u20ac1.70 per liter of fuel \u2013 take your tax, that\u2019s what you were taking five weeks ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAny increase on that, we will pay the increase on the cost of the fuel, but we won\u2019t pay tax on the increase,\u201d Deputy O\u2019Donoghue said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the Government that\u2019s wrong to criticise the fuel costs protestors, not the protestors themselves, Independent Ireland TD&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,9658,61,25919,60,24168,95454],"class_list":["post-390067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-fuel","tag-ie","tag-independent-ireland","tag-ireland","tag-protests","tag-richard-odonoghue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}