Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I have some detailed comments to make about this Bill but first I must say that I find it alarming that there are calls from the Government backbenches to sell off and privatise the ESB. Given the issues we face in terms of energy security, our climate change challenges and the cost of living, which we are now discussing, any proposals to sell off or privatise the ESB need to be strongly opposed. Privatisation would be a disaster for this country. Privatising Telecom Éireann was an absolute disaster. We would now have broadband in public ownership and rolled out nationally, which is needed for economic and social reasons, if the disastrous decision to privatise Eircom had not been taken years ago to the benefit, of course, of the people who made money out of that privatisation process. Privatisation of core public services, including energy supply and security, has been a disaster in other countries. We should not be following any proposals or suggestions to do likewise here. I strongly oppose those calls. I call on the Government Ministers and every party in this House to oppose them as well.

I welcome the opportunity to debate this Bill. The fact that this is an emergency measures Bill says a lot about how the Government has responded to rising energy costs, energy poverty and our future energy needs. There have been adequate opportunities for the Government to intervene ahead of rises in energy costs to establish short-term solutions such as income supports while adequately resourcing and funding long-term solutions such as a strategy for combating energy poverty, none of which has been done to date. My colleague, Deputy Whitmore, raised the need for Dáil statements on rising energy costs back in September, when rising energy costs were first predicted. That was more than four months ago. My colleagues in the Social Democrats and I have since consistently called for short-term income supports to support people and help buffer them from rising energy prices, pre-empting the cliff that many families could face far into the winter months. In all of that time, energy prices have shot up, with household electricity costs rising by approximately 70% from late 2020 to the end of last year. Some estimates calculate that these hikes have added an additional €1,000 to €1,300 to the average home's yearly expenses. This is nearly twice as high as previous calculations of approximately €700.

The Social Democrats has also called for families in receipt of the working family payment to be eligible for the fuel allowance and for the widening of the criteria for the means-tested energy components of the household benefits package. Unfortunately, the Government only saw fit to widen eligibility for fuel allowance to jobseekers who have been on the payment for more than 12 months, down from 15 months. Furthermore, basic social welfare payments only increased by €5 in budget 2022. There were no attempts to increase the qualified child payment to assist families with children, among other social welfare-related supports. As short-term measures go, these do not go far enough nor are they in line with the extent to which energy prices are increasing.

We also called for a moratorium on utility disconnections. While this was not granted, my colleague, Deputy Whitmore, did speak with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, which confirmed the range of measures in place to help people struggling to pay their bills. These include switching supplier, engaging with the company, placing their name on a priority list of people suffering from a medical condition and engaging with the social welfare community officer for discretionary payment if they could not pay an upcoming bill. Of course, these are not sufficient and it is hard for people to negotiate these measures. Instead of applying a range of other short-term measures, the Government sharply focused its energy on a once-off emergency stopgap measure, which is really more about delaying and scrambling than reacting properly.

This payment is cited as being one of a suite of measures to mitigate the effects of the recent significant rises in electricity prices, which includes support through the social protection system. It is a mystery as to what this suite of measures actually comprises when existing supports have not been increased to the extent required in this situation.

Furthermore, the payment is not targeted. According to the last census, there are 62,000 holiday homes in Ireland. Under the Government's current plan to issue €100 credit to every household in the country, more than €6 million will be spent to provide financial assistance to the owners of these homes. I do not accept the argument that holiday home owners should be in receipt of Government assistance to pay their bills. I feel more work could have been done to target this payment better towards those who are really struggling with bills at the moment. The Government has stated that it cannot target this support at those most in need as it would be overly complex to do so. That contention is dubious given that the scheme was announced in December and the credit will not be paid until March, a period of four months during which a more targeted approach could have been devised.

My colleague, Deputy Whitmore, questioned the request to waive prelegislative scrutiny, through which there would have been an opportunity to look at this in more detail and come up with a solution. It could have been done quickly and in a timely manner through the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action. Was the removal of holiday homes ever considered? Were ways to make this payment more targeted looked into and, if so, to what extent?

In the long term, we need to think about implementing a new strategy to combat energy poverty. Such a strategy is nowhere to be seen. Despite there having already been three strategies to combat poverty, there is no movement on a fourth. A review is currently being carried out of the implementation of the strategy to combat energy poverty, which the Minister said will be completed in the coming months and will inform the next steps with regard to the development of a new strategy. My colleague, Deputy Whitmore, submitted a parliamentary question asking for an update. It was put to her that significant progress had been made since the last strategy was published in 2016. Most of these commitments relate to increasing funding for numerous retrofitting schemes, many of which are still not operational. I do not believe this can be counted as progress as it will be years before people get the full benefit of living in warmer homes. Meanwhile, many people are slipping into the fuel poverty net with little support to keep them afloat.

On this topic, we can address both the financial and environmental cost of high energy prices by making our homes more energy efficient. Energy-efficient homes help reduce our carbon footprint as they require less fuel to heat but they also help to address fuel poverty. Despite Government strategies specifically aimed at tackling energy poverty, barriers to accessing grants persist, especially for low-income households. These are the households that are most likely to use solid fuels such as coal and peat but policies have often sidelined these very households, those that need the most support. The upfront costs associated with accessing sustainable energy grants act as a barrier for those on low incomes. Too often, subsidies are only taken up by those who can afford to make the necessary investment. Retrofitting is a prime example of this. As those who need them most can often not avail of the grants due to cost, in effect, these subsidies transfer wealth to households on higher incomes. With more than 230,000 homes having the lowest building energy ratings, F and G, it is imperative that the Government support these households by redesigning these schemes to make them more accessible. According to the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, those living in homes with ratings of F or G have a much higher indicative cost. In fact, a two-bed apartment with a rating of F or G has an indicative annual cost of €2,400 to €3,000, three to four times the fuel allowance.

As a household increases in size, so too does the heating cost. A three-bedroom semi-detached house with a low energy-efficiency rating costs between €3,200 and €4,000 to heat. The fuel allowance and other social welfare supports are not increasing in line with inflation or energy costs, which means a huge cohort of people is being left behind. This is completely unacceptable.

There are other long-term initiatives that the Government needs to focus on better, including those associated with energy demand, renewable energy generation and just transition. With regard to energy demand and generation, an upgrade of the national grid must be a key element of infrastructural investment so communities, co-operatives, farms and individuals can produce renewable energy and sell what they do not use back to the national grid, thus becoming self-sustaining and contributing to meeting our national targets.

Our energy infrastructure is not fit for purpose to address the everyday energy needs of people living in Ireland, so it can hardly cater for large-scale projects such as data centres. In that context, we need to acknowledge the energy demand on an energy system that is wholly antiquated. The facts speak for themselves. The annual increase in energy demand from data centres in the past four years was the equivalent of adding 140,000 households to the power system each year. This is not sustainable and it is now threatening our energy security, investments worth billions of euro, and thousands of jobs.

My colleague, Deputy Jennifer Whitmore, has spoken many times on this issue. We do not tire of saying we need a strategy to manage the current and future energy demands in respect of data centres.

Our energy infrastructure needs rapid modernisation to meet not only our energy needs but also our climate action goals. Our renewed ambition to meet the target of having 80% of our energy generated using renewable resources by 2030 is now aligned with our climate action plan and will require an urgent overhaul of the outdated legislation facilitating the development of offshore wind farms. There are many wind farms planned for locations off the east coast that will generate a huge amount of green electricity, but the capacity will be threatened if any delays are incurred.

We need a management strategy to manage current and projected energy demand in Ireland so we can prevent energy price hikes, ensure people can afford the energy they need and assist people with their capacity to adapt to climate change and lower their carbon footprint. Right now, the Government is expecting individuals to take on too great a burden to adapt to climate change. They can barely keep afloat considering the current cost of living. This is an important point if we are to bring people with us, which we need to do.

With regard to just transition, we are at a crossroads. We need to start examining and meeting our climate action targets and our reduction targets together because the two go hand in hand. This will be important in building and maintaining public support in the years to come. If we do not do that successfully, it will threaten our capacity to have support in meeting our climate action targets. This is incredibly important. It should be a priority for all of us, particularly the Government, considering what we need to do by way of climate action in the coming years. If we do not do so properly, we will put in jeopardy the support for the many actions that will be needed.

Eliminating energy poverty and protecting people from it should comprise a key pillar of any just transition platform, which many organisations, including Social Justice Ireland, advocate. Groups such as Social Justice Ireland advocate a wide range of incentives to reflect these priorities and call for a focus on short- and long-term costs of addressing energy poverty for various groups in society.

The Minister has spoken regularly about just transition when it comes to achieving our climate change and climate action targets; however, these words can sound very hollow unless increases in social welfare payments are introduced to help people to manage the increased burden of rising energy prices, and unless there are supports for people on low incomes in general.

Significant investment across all platforms must be made to ensure our society meets its climate targets and to have a just transition. Ireland has significant work to do in this area and has consistently been one of the poorest performers in the European Union in meeting emissions targets.

To secure energy supply in the future, we need to ramp up renewable energy development and make inroads to reform the current planning regulatory environment. While it is welcome that moves to provide a scheme for households to sell solar power back to the grid are being progressed, we have an ambitious renewable electricity target to meet. The climate action plan has set out an ambitious goal of generating up to 80% of electricity from renewables by 2030. Reform of the Irish planning regulatory environment has been slow and we risk not facilitating the levels of investment needed to meet the renewable energy targets.

Meanwhile, the Government has complicated matters by prioritising the development of maritime consents without giving equal priority to looking towards Government commitments to expand Ireland’s marine protected area network from 2.13% to 30% by 2030. This will require creating a marine protected-area regime, which requires another major change to current marine environmental protection laws. Sufficient inroads have not been made to put this on a statutory footing. It is another example of the crossroads we are at, where our climate action targets are meeting social issues such as energy poverty. We need to secure our energy for the future through renewables to reduce poverty, but we need to reduce energy poverty without also damaging our environment. If we do not proceed in this way, we will risk failing to make a socially just transition to a zero-carbon economy. It is not an easy crossroads to cross but it is certain that an emergency measure like the one we are debating will do nothing to create genuine, tangible pathways for people already in energy poverty, or at risk of poverty, to move towards a socially just zero-carbon economy.

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