Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I welcome a Bill that addresses such an important sector and the opportunity it gives us to discuss this issue. There are elements in the Bill that we welcome. Anything that enhances or improves energy efficiency is welcome, as is setting targets and making resources available to improve energy efficiency. Similarly, anything that gives greater powers to State agencies to ensure safety is important. Safety should always be paramount when talking about electricity or gas.

Those measures are welcome but like much of the legislation the Government has introduced in recent months, these are partial measures that go a small way in the right direction, although not nearly far enough, while there is a worrying ideological element that underpins the legislation: the obsession with markets, liberalisation, as it is euphemistically called, and the deregulation of the energy sector. This Bill it underpins that approach to dealing with this important issue. While there is emphasis on energy efficiency and saving energy, and that is welcome, there is a worrying law and order approach to it. It is the wrong focus; it is an example of the Government wanting to appear determined about something while focusing on the wrong area.

I agree with Deputy Mulherin that if we are talking about energy, we must talk about two key areas, one of which is partially addressed, while the other is not covered at all. This country is massively dependent on imported energy, oil and fossil fuels. In a situation of severe and worsening economic crisis and problems with the public finances, on the question of prioritising investment, and this must be public investment because the liberalised energy sector simply does not reach the mark, we need massive public investment to develop sustainable energy resources. Deputy Mulherin is right when she talks about the west of Ireland. We are probably uniquely located in the world to develop these energy resources. We have wind, wave and tidal energy resources that are the envy of the world. We have completely failed to develop those resources at the speed and on the scale necessary. There have been improvements, but when the Deputy says there is frustration about this, the Government must agree with her. The technology is being developed and innovation is taking place in the area. There have been excuses about the technical difficulties of storing electricity but those are nonsense. There are methods and concepts for the storage of renewable power that could be made to work if we invest in them.

There must be large-scale investment. Instead, part of the motivation for this Bill is the need to bring our energy authorities into compliance with the moves towards liberalisation of the energy market, which is really just another name for the privatisation of that market. It is about opening the door to those who see this as an opportunity to make money but who do not see any priority in the State developing its energy resources in the interests of the people.

I encourage the Government to consider the role the ESB played in the 1920s and 1930s, when this country was on its knees. It was a poverty-stricken, virtually Third World country but the State decided - there were no socialists at the helm then - to electrify the country by creating a State enterprise to do it and investing resources and energy to make that happen. That transformed this country. As a result of the diktats of the troika, we are considering selling off parts of that very successful State enterprise at a time when it should be protected, invested in, developed and expanded. The enterprise to which I refer should be retained in public ownership and used as a vehicle for massive investment in both the infrastructure and research and development necessary to allow this State realise the enormous potential it possesses in the context of developing wind, wave and other forms of energy. I take this opportunity to urge the Government to consider the importance of what I am saying.

Much of the time, private entities do not have the resources necessary to allow them to proceed with projects. In addition, as a result of their focus on making short-term profits, many companies are not willing to put in place the level of investment required in the long term to develop the type of natural resources to which I refer.

I have some serious difficulties in respect of the thrust of the Bill. In the context of energy deficiency, there is a considerable emphasis in the legislation on encouraging behavioural change on the part of customers as if this is really the way in which we should deal with the problem. The Bill creates penalties for customers engaged in what is described as "energy theft" or inefficiencies. I am not in favour of either inefficiencies or theft. In so far as there are compulsions on energy producers to upgrade their technology, increase efficiency etc., these must be welcomed. Pressure should be exerted on such producers in this regard. However, the Bill emphasises that householders and consumers should be more energy efficient and I am concerned with regard to what this means.

In recent years the ESB spent a great deal of money developing smart meters. I do not know the current status of this project but I suggest that smart metering is not very smart at all. The good old-fashioned meters one can find in most homes are reliable. They do not need to be fixed and are not reliant on complex software, large computer databases etc., in order to operate. The development of smart meters has given rise to major technical problems. We do not need to install over 1 million smart meters, which would utilise untested computer technology etc., in order to pressure householders, particularly those who are less well off, not to use electricity at times when it suits energy providers to have extra capacity available. This means that if one is poor, one will sit at home in the cold and wait to turn on the heating at a time when it is cheaper for one's energy provider to produce electricity. That is not the way forward because it is not energy efficiency. In effect, it could prove to be a way to turn matters even more in favour of energy producers and their ability to make money and could lead to further pressure being exerted on householders to, in some cases, sit at home in the freezing cold. A huge proportion of the energy distributed throughout this country is used to heat people's homes.

When justifying moves to remove the household benefits package, which provides elderly and vulnerable people with some support in the context of paying gas and electricity bills, and outrageous cuts to the fuel allowance, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, stated these developments would be balanced by investment in and support for household insulation programmes. The cuts to which I refer were scandalous and the Minister for Social Protection's comments in respect of them do not represent a serious attempt to deal with the problem of energy efficiency. As stated on a number of previous occasions, I am of the view that if we are serious about developing energy efficiency then the pay-as-you-save approach mentioned in the Bill would be an appropriate mechanism to employ. However, the Government must make a much more determined effort to promote and must invest a higher level of resources in this approach.

This matter was brought to my attention by Mr. Brian Connolly from County Meath, who is present in the Visitors Gallery and who rang me out of the blue and stated that I should recommend a particular methodology to the Government. He suggested that we should provide, either through local authorities or some easily accessible agency, people with loans to allow them to insulate their homes. These would be long-term loans and the repayments in respect of them would be low and would be at or about the level of the savings they would make as a result of their homes being insulated. Effectively, therefore, there would be no cost involved because the savings made from insulating their homes would cover people's loan repayments.

If the Government made a serious effort to promote and made a large investment in such an approach, imagine the number of jobs which could be created. Tens of thousands of construction workers who are currently unemployed could return to employment if a massive insulation programme were put in place. Such a programme would represent real action in respect of the problem of fuel poverty among the poorer sections of society. It would also generate massive savings and be a real move in the direction of ensuring energy efficiency. In addition, it would have a major impact in the context of the amount of energy we are obliged to import. I propose that the Government make a major push in respect of promoting such an approach. It should also be prepared to make a massive investment. Mr. Connolly argues that such a programme would not cost that much and would ultimately prove to be fiscally neutral for the State. There would, however, be a need to make a large, up-front investment in order to launch the programme, which could have massive implications both for unemployed construction workers and in the context of promoting energy efficiency etc.

The Bill empowers inspectors to search people's homes in order to discover whether they are engaged in energy theft. As stated earlier, I am not in favour of people engaging in such theft. Some 350,000 to 450,000 people lost their jobs in the past two years as a result of circumstances completely beyond their control and for which they were not responsible. These individuals are being savaged by austerity cuts and their fuel allowances have been cut. In the forthcoming budget, their rent allowance is going to come under attack. In light of all this, one does not have to be a rocket scientist to work out that desperate people may do desperate things to ensure their homes remain warm. The position in which they find themselves was created by the previous Government. Is it fair, therefore, that the State should advocate an approach whereby a coterie of people will be dispatched to terrorise householders and charge into their homes to discover whether they are involved in energy theft? I am of the view that the focus in this regard is completely wrong.

The focus we need is on investment in sustainable energy resources, which this country is uniquely placed to development. It will have to be provided by the State and part of that means not selling off the State's natural resources and key State companies. It means serious investment in a massive insulation programme and creating real incentives for people to insulate their homes by providing the funding up-front. In the interim, it means not attacking or penalising the little support available to poor working and unemployed people in vulnerable sectors of society to address fuel poverty in the form of fuel allowances. Such attacks are unconscionable. It is outrageous that the Government would take measures, in a country where people die of hypothermia and winter-related diseases in their hundreds every winter, to attack provisions such as the fuel allowance. It is beyond belief.

See this speech in context