Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As I said, we have debated this quite a bit. I just want to pick up on one aspect of the proposal. We are into the third day of this debate. The Minister has argued, and he will have his reasons and rationale for doing so, about how we could raise further taxes. For example, last night we spent quite a bit of time debating why we should not ask institutional investors to pay tax on the large rents they gather. There are ways. There is a reason the Minister does not want to do that and there is a reason I would do that. There is also a reason I would cut the cost of home heating oil. The cost of reducing the cost of a home heating oil fill by €117 to the end of February would be in the region of €40 million, according to the Minister's officials. I do not take away from the size of the budget. I also do not take away from the size of the crisis in individual people's lives.

We all know there are many homes that are very poorly insulated. We had a discussion about housing and the role the Minister and the Government have played in creating and sustaining a housing crisis. As regards where people are at with their homes, insulation and retrofitting over the last decade, what has happened is shocking. The focus has been on the wrong areas. Schemes that are in place now have, on average, a 27-month waiting list. People have to wait 27 months for the better energy warmer homes scheme. The target for this year is 4,800 retrofits and the waiting list is over double that. The number on the waiting list is growing all the time, while the wait time is 27 months. For other schemes, it is well documented that people need a large amount of disposable cash or be able to get a loan in order to benefit from some of those. Those on lower incomes would be looking at the better energy warmer homes scheme. It is not 2023 they could be looking at. It is not even 2024. If they are lucky, they might be able to avail of it in 2025 if they apply for the scheme in the morning. For many people who are in poorly insulated homes, their only way of heating their homes is home heating oil. The Government has done something on home heating oil; it has continued to raise the price. That is what it has done. There has been a reduction of VAT on gas. Some 80% of homes in Dublin are heated by gas but in the west and north west, in the Border counties and right down in the south east, home heating oil is the predominant method of heating homes. That is a serious issue. There is something the Government could do by recognising that there is an issue here. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there who have no other option but to heat their homes through home heating oil. The price of oil has increased by 145% since January 2021. Part of that, albeit a small part in comparison to the overall increase, is the Government's actions in pushing up the price, which it plans to do again. There is a serious issue here that has to be dealt with.

I mentioned the track record of this Government or governments that Fine Gael has been involved in. The number of shallow retrofits has dropped by 85% since Fine Gael took office. From 2011 to 2019, the number of shallow retrofits dropped by 85%. Homes that are not insulated properly lose, on average, 20% to 30% of heat through their roofs and external walls. There has been a reduction of 85% in shallow retrofits. In 2011, 51,000 roofs were insulated. In 2019, only 7,500 were done. When Fine Gael went into government, 51,000 roof insulations were carried out and in the last year we have figures for, which is 2019, that had dropped to 7,500. That is a failure. It is a failure to plan and to deal with the issue. We cannot turn that around overnight. We know that. There is a huge crisis here in terms of skills, delays and in the processing of applications by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI. There are huge bottlenecks that will take time to resolve. I would argue that this should not have happened. It should not have built up in this way. Fine Gael has been in government for the guts of 12 years but we have to deal with the here and now.

Temperatures have dropped this week. A lot of people are worried about Christmas. We should also not forget about the serious flooding in parts of the country over recent times. Temperatures have remained high until now. People tell me the grass had been growing. Temperatures have been quite high but they have dropped now. People are really worried about heating their homes, about the amount of home heating oil they have to purchase and the cost of that coming into the winter. This is a measure that I am putting forward around home heating oil that would reduce the price. As the Minister said, there is nothing to stop us doing this at a European level. We can reduce the price of a fill by €117 up until the end of February to get people through the winter. I strongly believe it is something that should be done.

Have the Minister or the Department undertaken any analysis or provided revised estimates of the price trajectory of carbon-based fuels since 2020? Given the anticipation that the trajectory will now be higher over the medium term as a result of higher demand, the green transition and geopolitical factors that have materialised, there is a very strong view that fossil fuels will remain at a high level as we move towards an energy transition and that the price of fossil fuels will continue to rise. Has any analysis been done since 2020 on this matter?