Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

In this motion I am presenting the case on behalf of the Labour Party for a realistic and effective response to the hidden crisis of fuel poverty. Thousands of families are being put in extreme anxiety because they simply cannot pay their utility bills. This year already approximately 2,500 electricity disconnections and more than 4,000 gas disconnections have occurred every month. Unless the Government wakes up to this reality, the crisis will simply deepen as winter sets in.

This motion does not ask the Government to do anything it cannot do in the current recessionary climate. It does not even ask the Government to do anything it does not accept needs to be done. This motion is about getting the Government to do what it said it would do but did not. It is about calling the Government to account.

A year ago in the renewed programme for Government, Fianna Fáil and the Greens stated, "We will publish a fuel poverty strategy by the end of 2009, in keeping with the introduction of a carbon levy". We got the carbon levy but only silence on the fuel poverty strategy. The same programme stated those most at risk of fuel poverty will be protected with the introduction of the carbon levy. The Government passed on that one too. Another deafening silence despite promises made at the last budget.

The tabling of this motion has already produced some kind of result, even though we cannot tell yet what precisely is going on. According to media reports today, there has been a promise of some kind of fuel allowance increase. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, are in total disarray on the issue, however. The Minister for Finance opposes an increase in the fuel allowance while the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government talks up an increase. Meanwhile, the Minister for Social Protection who has primary responsibility for the allowance, Deputy Ó Cuív, is saying nothing. At a time when the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is looking for consensus from the rest of us, the Government parties are squabbling among themselves on this issue. It would be funny except for the fact that it is tragic for those directly affected. This debate has prodded a response, albeit a muddled one, from the Government. Nothing in the Government amendment clarifies the matter, however.

Recently, at my request, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources held hearings on the issue of debt management and the high level of disconnections, a matter of concern to both the energy regulator and the utility companies. Organisations such as the Money Advice and Budgeting Service and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul play a vital role in supporting people at risk. I want to record our thanks for their dedication.

Neither does the Government have in place an over-arching strategy to deal with fuel poverty. Will the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources outline his proposals for a strategy when he responds later? Two years ago, the Labour Party foresaw the growing problem and published the Fuel Poverty and Energy Conservation Bill 2008, the purpose of which was to require the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to publish and implement a strategy for reducing fuel poverty. He would also be responsible for setting targets for the strategy's implementation. Regrettably, the Government ignored the Bill then. Now, in the absence of any statutory initiative, I demand the Government takes up our proposal.

In Northern Ireland the situation is markedly different. A fuel poverty strategy is in place which includes a zero-disconnection policy which should be adopted here in the Republic. It is based on the use of prepaid meters so that people use only what they can afford. The regulator here has approved the use of an additional 17,000 free prepaid meters this year, welcome news. Their cost is prohibitive and this measure does not go far enough, however. The UK Government has a legal obligation to eradicate fuel poverty. In Northern Ireland the strategy sets out targets to be met by 2016.

It is time here in the Republic we lived up to this challenge at home. Thousands of households will not be able to afford to heat and power their homes this winter. Winter mortality death rates of approximately 2,000, mostly among older people, are recorded each year in Ireland alone due to the cold, one of the highest levels in the EU. The rise in the number of fuel poor is likely to put more lives at risk this winter. Many families with young children are forced to choose between heating their homes and cooking a hot meal.

Fuel-poor people are living in cold, damp, energy inefficient housing and are often unable to heat their homes to an adequate level. Fuel poverty is defined as the need to spend greater than 10% of the household income on fuel to achieve an acceptable level of warmth. It depends on household income, the energy efficiency status of the property and the cost of energy. However, no comprehensive up-to-date national statistics are available on the number of people experiencing fuel poverty.

Research carried out by Bord Gáis Éireann on a sample of 500 household disconnections showed a new demographic development in fuel poverty. Up to 59% of households disconnected were owner-occupied while only 2% were in social housing. Overcome by unemployment, high mortgages, family breakdown or illness, these are the new poor who live in private estates and in terror waiting for the company man to come and disconnect an essential service.

In one case I know of, a woman is desperate for help. Her husband, self-employed, recently suffered a brain injury and cannot work. They have a young child. When the woman sought help from her community welfare officer to pay for heating oil, she was told no assistance could be given for oil fills.

What is this woman to do? What are all the others like her, mothers with young children, older people with long-term medical conditions who regularly come into our constituency clinics, to do? It has been estimated that approximately 60,000 Irish households live in persistent fuel poverty and a further 160,000 or so experience intermittent fuel poverty. Bord Gáis stated in the order of 20,000 customers are currently carrying arrears of more than €500 and 20,000 customers are in the final resolution stage where disconnection of supply is a possibility. Among all the statistics, the most shocking one is the fact that debt management in Bord Gáis is a problem that is 40 times bigger this year than it was last year. That shows the scale of what we will have to deal with now.

We know certain approaches will help. Early intervention is key to finding the solution and new payment plans must be offered to all those customers who are struggling to pay their bills. All utility companies must have an active role in ensuring that customers are facilitated in paying in methods that they can manage. The ESB told post office workers that people have to pay in €20 instalments, rather than the small amounts they have been paying until now. That is not helpful and I hope it adopts a different approach. That said, it is worth noting that companies, in the main, are making considerable efforts to assist customers in trouble. It is not helpful that the regulator has set the price for disconnection and reconnection fees at around €200. This bears no relation to the cost of these measures or the ability of the debtor to pay it. There needs to be a full review in the context of developing a zero disconnection policy in order that these fees are made manageable.

It is curious that the regulator, which is so exercised with ensuring competition in the market, has not dealt with lack of competition in the free electricity units market. At the current time, only ESB customers are entitled to free units, which is obviously part of social welfare support. Other utility companies are only allowed to offer cash or cheque alternatives and, understandably, free units are preferable to customers. It may seem a small point but this scheme should be redesigned to extend its availability to non-ESB customers.

The Government maintains that prices have decreased but if we look back far enough we find that in 2002 we had among the lowest electricity prices in the EU. Now we are on the higher end of that range. On full deregulation, something that is now being considered by the regulator and which I hope will be helpful to customers, it is extraordinary that before we can have it for households, there will be further costs levelled in the interests of competition. The regulator is insisting that the major utility companies must change their brand names if they are to have price deregulation at an early date.

At a committee I asked the regulator how much it would cost. I was rather startled to hear that the regulator did not know how much it would cost, even though he was imposing the requirement on the major utility companies. It seems it is not his problem, rather it is our problem. We are the consumers being sacrificed on the altar of competition. It is a crazy plan that the Labour Party opposes strenuously. Such a change, and a loss of familiar brand names in which this country can take a certain pride, such as the ESB and Bord Gáis, would involve a campaign to explain it to customers to get them used to a new set of names and would cost at least €80 million for no good purpose. Bord Gáis has estimated it will cost €40 million. The ESB is a much bigger company and it will cost more. If one considers what Aviva spent in changing its name, it is mind-boggling. Who will pay for this bling regulatory measure? The unfortunate consumer will be forced to foot the bill. In the interests of common sense I am asking the Minister, Deputy Ryan, who is a man of common sense, to step in and put a stop to this vagary once and for all. We simply cannot afford it.

There is a context to the issue of how we manage, price and use energy. There is an onus on any Government to deal with fuel costs and climate change in a fair and equitable way. It is a matter of regret that tackling climate change is now perceived by many people as simply about the imposition of a carbon levy. I refer to the public perception that it is seen as a negative when tackling climate change is a responsibility for all of us and the Government can be a help or a hindrance in helping us to face up to it. That is why it is disappointing that a Green Party Minister has failed to deliver fully on energy efficiency measures. There is plethora of energy efficiency schemes but there is no comprehensive national retrofit effort that could transform Ireland's energy efficiency and play its part in tackling fuel poverty.

At present most grant support for energy efficiency measures is geared towards those with disposable income who can afford to make up the cost of the solar panel or have the space for a wood pellet burner. Private companies are springing up to provide renewables for households, and good luck to them, and are clearly targeting the better off who can avail of these grants. I am glad the warmer homes scheme is now available. It is geared towards providing insulation for elderly people on low incomes living in poor quality housing, but it is limited in its range. In my area one has to have a fuel allowance to qualify for the scheme and I understand this is the case all over the country, which means the scheme excludes as many as it includes. The fact is that very often those on low incomes are still living in poorly insulated, sub-standard, energy inefficient homes.

In a recent survey among homeowners who took part in the home energy saving scheme carried out by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland it was found that "single and low-income households are under-represented, as are younger adults and those in rented accommodation". The reality is that poor householders are means tested for basic insulation projects while the better off are entitled to claim for grants for various energy efficiency measures. Even allowing for this startling unfairness the Minister, Deputy Ryan, failed to ensure that the funding allocated for energy efficiency was actually spent last year. It was budgeted for and allocated, and was in the Estimates, but some €35 million was returned to the maw of the Minister for Finance because the Minister, Deputy Ryan, could not implement his own policy.

Other commitments that have been made in the programme for Government, such as the proposal to maximise energy efficiency with a target of 33% energy savings by 2020 in the public sector, have tremendous potential for job creation. The Labour Party produced a document, The Energy Revolution, which put forward very clear proposals for a national energy efficiency retrofit programme to create at least 30,000 direct construction sector jobs. We recognise the need for an immediate jobs initiative and these schemes, and the retrofit project in particular, are the low hanging fruit for job growth and energy savings.

This summer, during an Oireachtas committee meeting when I questioned the Minister, Deputy Ryan, on his failure to deliver, he asked me what I would do differently and I told him. I said that, first, I would concentrate on houses for which there is greater need. I certainly would invest in insulation in public buildings, such as schools and hospitals. Every hospital should be covered with external insulation. That should be the Government's marker if it is serious about insulation and increasing energy efficiency. I am glad the Minister agreed with me, yet there is no major programme of insulation for our schools, hospitals, Garda stations and public buildings even though there are thousands of construction workers with the necessary skills who are without work.

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