Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is a matter of urgency and necessity that we re-nationalise our energy sector and put it back on a not-for-profit footing. I say this from the perspective of people who, when we are faced with the sort of energy crisis we are now witnessing, are being crucified by a market, for-profit system which has no capacity to control the price of heating, energy and hot water that human beings need to sustain themselves through periods like this cold snap we are experiencing. I wish to bring the argument down to the core of human reality that people are facing by referring to a couple of messages I received this week.

The first asked me what the story is with the gas prices. The person who wrote it was on pre-paid power and used to top-up by €20 weekly, but the cost now is nearly €10 daily. This person, who is on invalidity pension and lives alone, then wrote, "God Almighty, it is worrying", and said that due to being sick since last Friday with flu, her gas might have been on a little more but not all the time. This is a huge concern for this woman, and for others, and I was asked to flag this situation with our Government to see what people can do to cope. She suggested that since each gas system works differently, it might be possible to get the council to get an expert to look at these systems to see how to best get the most from them at little cost. My correspondent then wrote that she would appreciate it if I could bring this issue up. This is an elderly woman on invalidity pension, with the flu, who is terrified by the cost of energy.

I got a message from another woman, whose name is Deirdre. She wrote to me to raise an issue that she said had not been highlighted during this cold snap. Deirdre is living in social housing in Dún Laoghaire. Her housing association is Tuath Housing and the management company for the apartment complex is Benchmark Property and these apartments are all tied to one district heating system run by Kaizen Energy. Since the rise in heating costs and daily standard charges, Deirdre cannot keep up with the cost of heating. She works full time and is a single parent to a teenager with autism spectrum disorder, ASD. She earns an okay wage but said she was sitting there in her apartment, ill with flu, and freezing because her heating ran out again that morning and she just did not have the money to top it up. Deirdre works full time and is, therefore, not entitled to fuel allowance or any other assistance, so she said she will have to wait until 22 December to be able to top it up again. Another issue for Deirdre is that the heating system is tied to the hot water, so if she does not have credit on the heating system, then she has no access to hot water. Deirdre wishes to know why this heating company has full control and why tenants cannot shop around for a better deal, or the management company for that matter. The Minister of State will get the drift.

I met another man who came into my office - I think he actually lives in the same development - a couple of months ago who told me the shocking fact, and this was an ill, elderly man, that he has not had hot water for about a year because he could not afford it. Another example, also from my area and the Minister of State's, so he should be interested, concerns a resident living in Halliday House in Cualanor in Dún Laoghaire. The people there recently received a communication from their provider, Kaizen Energy, telling them their heating prices would be going up from €0.233 per kWh to €0.56 per kWh. This is a staggering 140% increase overnight, and it comes on top of a €1.08 daily standing charge. A screenshot was attached to this message for reference.

How is it expected that people will cope with this kind of situation? How is it possibly allowed? Of course, the reason this is allowed is that we deregulated and privatised the energy market. The people involved in these companies, then, can charge what they like. There is absolutely no fairness or consistency in what people are charged. It is all driven by what can make these companies a profit. As a result, elderly, sick and vulnerable people freezing in their homes in this weather are unable to even afford hot water.

It is a very different situation, of course, for the energy companies. Bord Gáis Energy recorded a 74% rise in profits in the first half of this year, from €22 million to €39.5 million. Its parent company, Centrica, which also owns British Gas, made operating profits of £1.3 billion in the second quarter. We have also seen similar spectacular rises in the profits of the ESB. Deputy Paul Murphy has already highlighted what is happening with the fossil fuel companies, which have seen an unprecedented bonanza in the profits they are enjoying during the period when this cost-of-living crisis is crucifying elderly people, working people on low and middle-incomes, pensioners and so on. An absolute bonanza is being made in profits and there is nothing to stop these companies doing this because the entire system is operated for profit. As the Minister of State and the Government are wont to do, they wish to try to blame all this on the war in Ukraine, but the facts tell a different story. The rise in electricity and heating costs can be traced directly back to the deregulation and privatisation of the energy market and the removal of the not-for-profit mandate of the ESB. This happened long before the Ukraine war.

From 1994, which is when deregulation started, to 2014, average consumer prices in the EU-15 increased by 40%. That was bad enough for the EU. In that period as well, however, average consumer prices increased by 267% in Ireland. This was before any of the recent crises and price hikes. Energy prices had gone up in this country by multiples, by four and five times, what they had gone up in the rest of Europe.

We go from having the lowest energy prices in Europe because the ESB has a not-for-profit mandate to privatisation and deregulation where it jumps by multiples of the rest of Europe. God knows what that figure would be if we count in what has happened in the past two years. Electricity prices in this country are 49% higher than they are in France where over 90% of the market is dominated by state-owned or state-backed entities. The evidence is absolutely clear. Privatisation and deregulation, so-called competition in the market, have done the exact opposite of what the people who proposed them said they would do. I was shocked to hear the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Ryan, in recent debates trotting out the same rationale, even in the face of all of the evidence that is now confronting us. The Minister and the Minister of State talked about competition benefiting the consumer in the market. Are they off their heads? Where is the evidence that competition has done anything other than fill the pockets of the energy companies with a bonanza of record profits resulting in massive hikes in the cost of energy?

To conclude on the point about climate, what is the point in us developing all our own renewable energy to deal with the climate crisis if all the benefit is going to flow to private companies that wish to keep the prices up? We have not seen any benefit from the fact we are now one of the biggest producers of renewable energy, not a single benefit. Why has there not been some reduction in the price of electricity now that we are up to about 30% renewable energy? It is because private companies, linking it to the wider fossil fuel and energy profiteering, make sure there is no benefit passed on to ordinary people. Nationalisation is an absolute must and an urgent necessity.

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