Ms Issy Petrie:

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul certainly share the Deputy's concern. Without further intervention, the size of the bills people are getting means they will be going into next winter with those repayments hanging over their heads. We are seeing bills in the high hundreds of euro or more, including some in the region of €1,000. A particular concern is the multiple bill cycles coming through from last winter. A bill of €600, say, would previously have been very unusual but is now becoming a multiple occurrence for people. That leads to an insurmountable mountain of arrears. It is urgent that this issue is tackled now in order to assist the people who are likely to be the least able to pay off their arrears or who might have the highest energy needs for various reasons, whether that be the energy inefficiency of their home or because of health needs. There is a concentration of these really significant levels of debt among people who are least able to afford it.

It is difficult to say how many people are coming to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul with these very high levels of debt. Requests for help with energy bills went up last year and increased significantly again in the first quarter of this year. They are split between prepay customers, a lot of whom we hear from because of the urgency of their situation, as well as people faced with really big bills who need somewhere to turn for support. It is hard to give an exact figure.