Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

This is a very important motion and I thank the Rural Independent Members for tabling it. It is very timely as obviously we are heading into winter and this issue will impact people significantly over the coming months. I had previously called for the Dáil to set aside time for a debate on the surging energy prices and had requested such a debate from the Business Committee but unfortunately it was not provided for. It is unfortunate that we need to rely on Opposition motions to raise this because it is an issue that will significantly impact on every individual in the country.

At the moment we have a perfect storm on energy. We have a crisis with cost and affordability which is obviously affected by international factors. However, there are also factors relating to the demand being placed on our energy system and on the antiquated infrastructure we have in place. The wholesale price of natural gas has nearly tripled this year and that is before peak winter demand sets in. As a consequence, consumers are experiencing enormous hikes in their energy bills. The price hikes resulted in Bord Gáis charging almost 28% more for gas than during last winter and nearly 24% more for electricity. Last week Energia announced that it would increase charges for electricity and gas by 15.5% and 18.5%, respectively, on top of two rounds of price increases earlier in the year. Others such as Panda Power and Pinergy have already raised prices four times this year.

Consumers could see increases this year of €500 to €800 in their bills which is an incredible amount of money and many people will not be able to afford to deal with those. The rising cost will have a negative impact on many vulnerable people on fixed or low incomes, including pensioners and those in receipt of social welfare payments. Only small increases in social welfare payments were provided for in the budget and these are not sufficient to keep people afloat. It also did not address the needs of households with one or two people working in the home but still finding it very hard to keep up with the rising cost of living, including increasing rents or mortgage payments, rising childcare costs and other general cost increases. These people will not be able to get any supports from the budgetary measures the Government has put in place. The Social Democrats had called for the fuel allowance to be extended to those getting the working family payment, but the Government missed the opportunity to assist those working families who will find it difficult this winter.

The measures the Minister of State outlined in his statement are all long-term ones. We want to see retrofitting and we want to see people being able to feed back into the grid through the microgeneration schemes, but none of that will happen in the short term. At the moment there is a 26-month waiting list for people to get retrofitting grants. None of the measures the Minister of State listed will help people in the short term. In the budget the Government failed to take the opportunity to help people in the short term through the expansion of fuel allowance payments to those on the working family payment.

I have spoken to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, requesting a moratorium on disconnections because we do not want people to be disconnected over the winter. I understand that some measures are in place but they are not sufficiently widespread. The CRU advised that people who are struggling to pay their energy bills have a series of options but the problem is that not many people are aware of this. The CRU needs to communicate widely to tell people what supports are available and what safeguards are in place to ensure that people are not disconnected. That would be a very sensible and feasible thing for the Government to do. I ask the Minister of State to put that in place or to discuss it with the CRU.

The Minister of State spoke about all the measures, tools and policies the Government had put in place as a result of the climate action plan. He spoke about retrofitting, solar energy and so on, which are all welcome. However, I have concerns that the value of the climate action plan announced last week was portrayed in the media as €125 billion. That gave the impression that the Government had invested €125 billion in those measures, which is completely incorrect. In reality, the Government will be looking for people to carry the financial burden of this. The majority of that €125 billion is the money that individuals, families and businesses will need to put into their homes, cars and business operations to upgrade to meet the targets under the climate action plan.

I do not think the Government has invested sufficiently in this to assist people to make those changes. As was said earlier only ten or 11 people disagreed with the climate Bill and while most of us agree with the targets, how we get there is equally important. Unfortunately, the concept of just transition does not seem to be making it into the Government's policy-making discourse.

Ideally individuals should have warm homes where they do not need to spend a lot of money paying for energy bills, where their homes are insulated and efficient, and where elderly people and people on low incomes do not need worry about that. That will happen through things like retrofitting. We also want people to have the opportunity to install solar panels and feed back into the grid. I know that is Government policy and it is welcome. It would make a big difference for many families.

Even within rural communities we need a transport system so that someone can catch a bus within a few minutes' walk of their door. I believe that is what the Government is trying to achieve with the Connecting Ireland plan, which is welcome. However, the level of investment the Government is making will mean that those targets will not be met. The real-life experiences that we want people to have will not be met through the investment the Government is making. Last week the NTA gave us a presentation on the Connecting Ireland plan. It seems like a very ambitious plan with the goal of 75% of Ireland having access to regular public transport. The entire plan will take five years to roll out. The investment the Government has given the NTA for that for next year is a paltry €5.6 million which will not meet people's needs in rural communities across Ireland. If we want people to move away from cars, we need to make public transport available, efficient, fast and affordable. Allocating €5 million to rural transport next year will just not do it.

The Government's solar panel policy has not been successful, with only 2,500 or 3,000 applications for the solar grant scheme every year which is very little. We need to make it more attractive because the payback on solar panels is over many years. If the Government wants people to invest and make those changes, it needs to assist them to it, but the grant scheme it has in place is not doing that. Similarly, many people will not be able to retrofit which is estimated to cost approximately €56,000 per home. Who has that kind of money? People are worried about keeping a roof over their heads and feeding their children. They will not have €56,000 to invest in something that not only does the Government want them to do, but we need them to do it. If the Government needs them to do it for us to meet our targets and to live more sustainably, it will need to invest in them to do it. We should take the opportunity to ring-fence the entire yield from the carbon tax for this as opposed to just the increase in the carbon tax.

It is interesting that even many Green Party Deputies do not understand that the full carbon tax does not go towards these measures, and that is worrying. The Government should examine that issue.

It is positive that we are having this debate. The Government really needs to focus on it, in regard to not just the long-term measures but also those in the short term. It needs to see what it can do in the coming months to assist families and individuals who are finding the fuel crisis tough.

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