Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. I congratulate him and his officials on all their great work in the past four and a half years. The national broadband plan has been a major success, certainly where I live in Sligo, Leitrim, south Donegal and north Roscommon. The plan has certainly accommodated many talented people moving to rural areas certainly since the arrival of Covid and since Brexit. These talented people are in every town and village and they want to get involved things like the Tidy Towns. They are working from home and could be dealing with people in New York, London or Dublin. I do not think people fully realise the value of it. The Minister of State should take a bow. It is good news. That is where we are at.

Regarding the Supplementary Estimate, I very much welcome the funding of €520 million for the fourth electricity costs emergency benefit scheme. Tomorrow - I try to keep an eye out for it - my electricity bill is due to arrive. I am often excited because I have contacted my provider for the past two months to ask when I can leave. I go to bonkers.ie and can see that tomorrow I can save €1,500 or €1,700 on domestic electricity costs, which represents a 40% saving. I just do not think we do enough. I remind people to look at their utility provider every year. As the Minister of State is aware, if people do not change providers, their bills automatically go up. We have come from about 80 cent two and a half years ago to 24 cent. It is an awful lot of money, but we need to do more to inform the general public of the huge savings to be made by just looking at the contract every year. I do not think we are doing enough. I strongly recommend people to go on to bonkers.ie and see how much they can save. While this may not be the responsibility of the Minister of State and his Department, what are they doing to publicly inform people? There are huge savings to be made.