Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Deputy Moynihan's Bill. It is important that there is a clear and proper code of practice for electricity and gas suppliers in dealing with their customers. I am disappointed that the Government will oppose this proposed legislation. In a time of declining incomes and increasing charges, more and more people will be left without electricity or gas. It is a serious and growing problem. The disconnection of electricity and gas customers can be a frightening occurrence for the consumer. Not alone is there the distress of the possibility of having to go without light or heat, there is also the confusion that surrounds the disconnection process. Over 14,000 homes were disconnected from electricity supply in 2012 and over 7,000 homes were disconnected from gas supply. The number of gas disconnections has increased by 82%. This is a startling number. It is a serious problem when so many families are unable to provide heat and light in their homes.

At the moment, only customers in significant arrears can avail of the prepay metering system. Customers who are not in arrears must use private companies to install prepay meters on which they pay a charge, resulting in higher energy costs for those customers. Prepay meters must become available to all customers should they wish to use them. This would help families to manage better their electricity and gas bills and would avoid so many households falling into debt, resulting in disconnections. Bill payers with a poor credit rating have routinely been put on to prepayment meters by energy suppliers and the cost per unit through such meters has historically been higher than if paid for by other means. Fuel poverty is an issue that must be taken seriously by this Government and the number of disconnections must be significantly reduced.

Despite enduring relatively mild winters, Ireland and England have the highest rates of seasonal mortality in northern Europe, and it has been shown that such mortality rates result, in no small part, from the inadequately protected, thermally inefficient housing stocks in these countries. There are also strong associations between inadequately heated homes and increased rates of morbidity; higher incidences of various cardiovascular and respiratory diseases have been associated with chronic cold exposure from within the home through living in fuel-poor conditions. The problem of fuel poverty occurs, therefore, when a household does not have the adequate financial resources to meet these winter home-heating costs, and because the dwelling's heating system and insulation levels prove to be inadequate for achieving affordable household warmth.

Some households need more fuel than others because their circumstances dictate that their homes must be heated for longer intervals or because they require higher temperatures. I refer, for example, to households in which the elderly or very young children are living. Heating costs may be disproportionately high in some households, such as single-adult households, because they have to be met by one person. Furthermore, it is known from generalised poverty and deprivation research that some households, such as single-parent households, face severe financial hardship. Each of these factors has an effect on the probability of certain household groups enduring fuel poverty.

The linear relationship between educational attainment and the incidence of fuel poverty is both strong and negative. The highest level of fuel poverty is found in groups with low levels of educational attainment. The incidence of fuel poverty among those who left the education system during primary school is 25.6%. The rate is 21.9% among those who left secondary school before sitting the leaving certificate or its technical equivalent. The 55,000 households that are headed by someone who did not sit the final secondary school examination comprise the largest cohort suffering fuel poverty in absolute terms. Conversely, those with third level education have very low levels of fuel poverty. Just 3.6% of the households headed by someone with a primary or postgraduate degree suffer fuel poverty. Who would have thought there would be such a link between educational attainment and fuel poverty? The linear relationship that exists in this regard is startling.

Research shows a further inequality in the propensity or ability of those on different incomes to take advantage of supplier switching to avoid higher tariffs. People on low incomes who live in remote rural areas that are not connected to the gas grid can fall outside of effective market competition, which means they are more likely to be subject to higher and fluctuating costs of oil, propane and biomass. The consequences of this relate not only to the direct impact of insufficient warmth on physical and mental health and well-being, but also to the ability to afford other essentials within the available total household budget. I am speaking about so-called "heat or eat" situations, in which households are forced to choose between spending money on energy bills or on food bills.

It is particularly significant that fuel poverty does not have equal consequences across different social and demographic groups. It is often linked to the excess winter deaths phenomenon, whereby a peak of deaths occurs in cold weather every year. Most of these deaths occur in older people, who may require more home heating than others for physiological reasons. As they are likely to spend more time at home than working people, affordability problems can have a greater impact on them. The recurrence of these excess deaths, year after year, in Ireland and some other countries has been referred to as a national scandal by charities involved in this area. The connotation is that these people's deaths, and therefore their lives, matter less than the deaths of those who are not so old.

I would like to conclude by referring to the deposit that suppliers have to pay to energy companies. I have spoken to a hotel proprietor who was billed for a deposit by an energy company he had been dealing with for several years. He has advised me that he never fell behind with his account during that time. He was a good and loyal customer. He was sent a bill for thousands of euro as some sort of security deposit. He felt, as an existing customer, that this was unfair and he decided to change his energy supplier. He was unable to do so, however, because the deposit for which he had been invoiced was shown as arrears against him. In effect, he was a hostage of the supplier that invoiced him for the security deposit. When he refused to make this payment, the company sent people with pliers to his hotel. As they were about to disconnect, he had to take money out of the bank to pay this ransom. I would not call it a deposit. When I contacted the Commission for Energy Regulation, I was advised that the company was within its legal rights to act as it did. If that is the law, it is seriously flawed. I would have proposed an amendment to Deputy Moynihan's Bill to make a change in this regard if the Government had allowed the Bill to advance to Committee Stage. When the Minister meets the CEOs, perhaps he will raise this scandalous issue with them.

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