Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this motion because it provides a timely opportunity to discuss the issue of fuel poverty and the looming energy crisis. The first call we have to make, as Members of the Oireachtas and representatives of the people, will be to again discuss the recently announced lifting of the moratorium on energy disconnections. We need such a measure to ensure that people are not cut off from their utility supply, including electricity, should they find themselves unable to pay their bills over the coming winter period and beyond. I call on the Government to engage with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities on that issue with a view to ensuring that the regulator at least discusses the possibility of putting that moratorium in place again.

A number of years ago, I visited a house in north Cork. I will not say where it was but as I pulled up to the gate there was a woman lifting a bag of timber blocks in through her front door. It was a mid-terrace house and she was lifting the bag in through her front door. Naturally, we would all assist in those circumstances and I did so. She and I got to talking and we were discussing the state of her house and the fact that she was piling wood into a fire to feed a back boiler to heat the house. She had no other means of heating the house and she spent her time clung to her fire. The woman is in the same situation a number of years later.

We have not seen a tangible great leap forward in retrofitting programmes for people who have owned their houses for a long time but do not have the means to reinvest in them because there is a shortfall between the grants available and the true cost of retrofitting. If that cost could be bridged, whether for people living in a local authority house or owner-occupiers, it would greatly assist the likes of that woman. A low-cost loan, such as that proposed by the Government, will not be sufficient for her to bridge the gap. Her savings would be meagre because she is wholly dependent on the Department of Social Protection for her means of income.

There has to be a better way of ensuring that the thousands of people in similar circumstances are given an opportunity to retrofit their houses in a way that provides proper heating and insulation and damp-proofs their homes to prevent the mould on walls that all of us have observed in houses we have visited over the years. This has to be a meaningful objective of the Government. The available evidence would suggest that in the past seven or eight years in particular, we have not had that great leap forward or dealt with the coterie of people I am talking about, of whom the woman I described is a representative. The Minister of State will acknowledge that.

If something were done for that woman, we would not find ourselves arguing in this House about pre-budget submissions that seek increased payments and transfers to people on the basis that they have to meet the costs of continuing to shove wood on the fire to feed the back boiler. All of that would be taken out of the equation. Be that as it may, we are at a juncture where measures will have to be introduced in this budget to offset the cost of the increased price of carbon. Fuel poverty measures must be in evidence in the budget to allow that woman to at least offset the cost of the coal, briquettes and blocks that she is forced to burn to meet her needs. That issue has to be addressing with a short-term measure.

Budget 2022 must introduce a carbon tax credit as an offsetting measure to deal with households that will find themselves in the fuel impoverished category in the coming 12 months and beyond. If the increase in the price of the carbon tax is already priced in following last year's budget, the danger is that people on low incomes will find themselves having to hunt around to meet the costs of heating their homes. If a refundable tax credit were introduced for these people, it would be a meaningful measure that would at least offset the costs of the increased price of carbon and give some level of comfort to those households. I ask the Minister of State to factor that suggestion into his considerations, if the budget has not already been put to bed, and the interplay between line Departments and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. At this late hour, some measure that would give working families and fuel impoverished households a refundable carbon tax credit that would offset the increase in the costs of energy and fuel would be welcome.

As a short-term measure, the Labour Party also advocates extending the fuel allowance by four weeks. This measure has also been advocated by representative organisations, particularly those representing people who find themselves wholly reliant on the Department of Social Protection for a payment. If the fuel allowance were extended by four weeks or increased by €5 per week, that would be worth approximately €272 to recipients. That would help the woman I am talking about.

President Higgins used to say of rural electrification that it took the stoop out of the back of the women in Ireland because they were not bent down stoking a fire all their lives to keep the house lit and put food on the table. It seems that things might not have changed for a good number of our citizens, particularly those who are living in the fuel impoverished houses we are talking about. I am not having a go at the Minister of State or the Government. This should be a non-partisan and apolitical issue which we should all be tasked with addressing. Various Oireachtas committees have made recommendations on these issues and their voices, which are representative of the people, have fallen on deaf ears in the Executive. The Government could bring into play some simple measures, including the carbon tax credit, that would help a lot of people.

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