Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to bring this motion before the House together with Deputy Coveney and my other Fine Gael colleagues. In the current climate this debate is both appropriate and necessary and I hope that, if nothing else, it will concentrate the Government's mind on the anxiety being faced by people across the country, particularly those on low incomes. The motion has been worded in a non-confrontational manner and in that regard it is disappointing that the Government could not accept it.

There is a serious lack of current Government statistics available on this topic, as well as a complete lack of any coherent Government strategy to deal with energy poverty. This point is clearly illustrated in the Government's amendment to the motion, which refers to the small initiatives taken to date while effectively ignoring the scale of the problem we are facing.

The Government claims to have established an interdepartmental agency or energy utilities group earlier this year. However, we have received no further information about what Departments, agencies or groups are represented on the group, when it has met, what its targets and objectives are or within what timeframe it hopes to make changes. It is probably as close to a real strategy that we are likely to get from this Government, but it is most unusual for the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, to establish anything of this nature without massive fanfare. There was no mention of this group in any of the Minister's statements over the summer. In the one somewhat relevant statement issued, she said she was working with the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. It will be interesting to see what her work with the Minister for Finance reveals, but the lack of co-ordination is evident from the exclusion — or at least the non-inclusion — of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Minister of State with responsibility for housing.

If ever there was an opportunity for the Government to attempt to justify the proliferation of junior Ministers by putting someone in charge of this area, this was it. Earlier today, we received an e-mail at the Committee for Social and Family Affairs stating that this group was set up on 11 July. I can only question why in the intervening period no communication of any kind has been made with the Combat Poverty Agency, which is currently evaluating the impact of the Sustainable Energy Ireland's warmer homes scheme. Perhaps this says more about the Minister's view of that agency than her views on tackling energy poverty; it is certainly one or the other.

The Combat Poverty Agency has made some valuable recommendations: improving and increasing the fuel allowance scheme; including all its recipients in the warmer homes scheme; the provision of smart electricity and gas meters; and adopting national energy efficiency standards for all social rented housing.

At its simplest, fuel or energy poverty means not being able to heat and fuel one's home adequately. Age Action Ireland, which has done good work in this area, has said that this winter many elderly people will have to choose between food and fuel. To put it even more starkly, they are making the choice between heating and eating. That is a terrible indictment of the Government.

The United Kingdom's definition of fuel poverty is drawn from the World Health Organisation's health analysis. According to that definition, a substantial number of households are actually suffering some form of fuel poverty. We quote the statistics in the motion. The World Health Organisation has stated that some 17% of households in Ireland are fuel poor. One can pick whichever statistics one wishes to use because the Government has no figures of its own. Whatever statistics are chosen, however, they constitute an indictment of the Government.

The Institute of Public Health, which published the most recent work on this area last December, reported that the level of fuel poverty on the island of Ireland remains unacceptably high. The lack of action by the Government in tackling this issue is demonstrated by the fact that it does not even have a definition of fuel poverty.

There are both direct and indirect effects of living in fuel poverty. The direct effects include colder indoor temperatures placing a thermal stress on the body, thus affecting the immune system and the blood and cardiovascular system, as well as cold, damp houses harbouring mould and aggravating respiratory and allergy problems. It is also believed that living in cold, damp housing can have negative effects on mental health. Members of this House regularly come across examples of such problems from their constituents. The indirect effects of living in fuel poverty include cutting back on spending across other areas such as food, clothing and transport. This clearly leads to further social exclusion for those who are most vulnerable.

When I raised these issues with the Minister for Social and Family Affairs in June, I quoted the statistics from the institute's study on winter mortality rates and the clear effects of fuel poverty. The Minister attempted to disagree but then admitted that "some 40% of those deaths relate to housing". That is a clear admission of failure in this regard. This is exactly the point that Fine Gael is making in this motion. We wish to see the matter addressed, yet we have no evidence that the Minister has even involved the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government or the Minister of State with responsibility for housing.

Each time the issue was raised here, Opposition Deputies have received similar responses both from the current Minister and her predecessor. In many cases, the ministerial replies are identical, whether oral or written. It is quite clear that there is no national strategy to deal with this issue. Each Department is doing a small amount in its own way but there is no real cohesion.

The Minister, Deputy Hanafin, has admitted herself that "it should not just be a case of giving pensioners money to heat houses if that heat is going straight out the window". Nonetheless, we have seen no response from the Government to deal with that. Her admission is contradicted when she constantly claims credit for increases in the fuel allowance that bear little or no relation to the dramatic increases in energy costs. In the vast majority of instances — to take the Minister's comments to their logical conclusion — that heat is still going straight out the window, door or roof.

We have heard enough from individual Ministers who say it is important for Departments to work together, while there is no evidence of any action plan, targets or timescales for delivery. By contrast, as Deputy Coveney said, the United Kingdom has a clear and costed plan of action, with targets and timescales for delivery.

I disagree with the Minister when she says that a primary contributor to fuel poverty is not the absence of money to pay for fuel, but the inefficiency of household heating systems. The two are inextricably linked, not separate. Over the course of the past year, however, the huge rise in fuel costs has meant that there is an absence of money to pay for fuel and this is causing anxiety for thousands of people. The Minister's response a number of months ago also ignored the issue of insulation and how poorly insulated much of our housing stock remains.

The Government's amendment to this motion also adopts some creative licence, and that is putting it politely. This is particularly so in commending its commitment to the 358,000 households which benefited from increases to the fuel allowance and the smokeless fuel supplement. In the latest statistics given to me by the Department, there are in fact only 299,327 households receiving these allowances and not 358,000, as suggested in this motion. The Government should amend this inaccuracy, which tries to paint a prettier picture than is actually the case.

There is no doubt that energy poverty is complex and the solutions will not be found in any single Department, which is why the need for action is all the more urgent. The issue of an adequate household income is a matter for the Minister for Social and Family Affairs. The issue of high cost energy for household users is a matter for the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the issue of high rate consumption linked to energy inefficient housing and appliances falls between the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Minister of State with responsibility for housing. The European Anti-Poverty Network has also pointed out that people on lower incomes spend proportionately more of their wages on energy than those on higher incomes, which is how they fall into the realm of fuel poverty, but many of these people spend more time at home because of their age, sickness, lack of money for socialising, unemployment, young families or disabilities. With prices rising so dramatically, these people are hardest hit. It is frequently people under these same categories who have poor quality housing and inefficient heating appliances.

We are likely to hear plenty of self-congratulatory speeches for schemes that have been initiated. I think we need to look behind self congratulation and evaluate the adequacy with which these schemes are dealing with the issue at hand. Let us look at the warmer homes scheme, which received €2.5 million funding this year and which I welcome. The number of low income households expected to be assisted this year is 4,000, yet the most up-to-date independent analysis states that approximately 227,000 households are experiencing some degree of energy poverty. At this rate it will be over 56 years before the problems in every household are addressed and that will be 56 more years of Irish taxpayers' money, to quote the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, going out the window. Nonetheless, the Government is putting down an amendment congratulating itself on this.

The central heating scheme provided by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has been quite effective. However, the issue of wall cavity insulation has still not been addressed and is still contributing to inefficiency. In addition to this, it again ignores the many thousands of people on low incomes who are not in local authority housing or who have purchased their houses but are on low incomes and are not able to provide central heating and insulation for themselves. The only effective method of dealing with this, both from a cost and conservation point of view, is for all relevant Departments to come together and develop an adequate strategy so that we see real investment. This is an opportune time to do so.

I also believe that the Minister should give people the option of receiving their fuel allowance in two lump sums rather than on a weekly basis. This would be particularly important for those with oil-fired central heating systems. It might cause a little bit of angst for a few days in the Department of Social and Family Affairs while its officials work out the detail, but that is nothing compared to the angst being felt by elderly people and lone parents with young children at home all day in cold, damp accommodation, struggling to stay warm this winter.

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