Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action
Energy Poverty: Discussion
Ms Susanne Rogers:
On poverty in general, energy poverty is just a facet of poverty. It is not that somebody is managing really well and then just cannot get their act together to pay their fuel bills on time. For us, this is just a facet of poverty. It is not separate. It is about the key issue of income inadequacy, which is going to be very important as we come into our pre-budget submission talk. It needs to be coupled with retrofitting but for us, energy poverty is poverty. It is not separate. It is not a category in and of itself that is over to one side. I just want to hit on that. Even with regard to the vulnerable customer piece, we do not tend to include low-income households in that category. Maybe that is something to explore around the definitions of who is vulnerable used by organisations.