Dáil debates

Tuesday, 26 April 2022

Home Heating Fuels: Motion [Private Members]

 

7:15 pm

Photo of Ivana BacikIvana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We know the spike in the cost of living is hurting households throughout Ireland as inflation has surged to a 22-year high of 6.7% and looks set to continue its increase. We see the cost of fuel, food, housing and basic services is now out of control. Everyone is feeling the pinch, most of all those who are already struggling to make ends meet. The horrendous war in Ukraine has undoubtedly added to this crisis, but many of the reasons underlying this spike are structural in nature, and measures such as the untargeted €200 energy stipend the Government provided for earlier this year are not the answer.

We say the Government response to the cost-of-living crisis simply does not go far enough, but we also believe the measures proposed by Sinn Féin in this motion are not the answer either, and I will set out why. Instead, we in the Labour Party believe Ireland needs a pay rise. What does that mean? It means ensuring we can put money back in the pockets of those who need it most, that people's incomes will go further, and the pay they are currently getting will be able to keep up with the necessary expenditure they have. It means implementing an effective universal pay rise and increasing the minimum wage but also targeting the enormous costs now faced now by so many households, such as costs of education, childcare, housing, health and transport. Ireland needs a pay rise because all of us meet people every day whose income is simply no longer enough to keep up with the rising price of commodities and the basic services that they need. We all hear from constituents living in genuine fear that they will not be able to continue to keep their homes, heat their homes or put food on the table. We need a co-ordinated response to this.

Addressing the cost-of-living crisis means taking progressive measures to make people's pay go further and adding value, not undermining important investments in our future, such as in the area of climate action. We know what is at stake. We have all heard the chilling prognosis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, and we know the solutions to the existential threat of the climate emergency are available to us. Our task as legislators is to implement them and to do so without delay.

I want to speak specifically about the Government plans on the sale of turf and peat. This has not been handled well by Government. We have seen endless mixing of messages, confusion and lack of clarity. As the Minister has said, the final regulations have still not been agreed by Government. We are debating today in a vacuum. Indeed, a debate is going on in the public domain in a vacuum because we have not seen what is to be in the detail of the regulations. It is welcome to hear that a fair balance will be struck to ensure the rights of those who are reliant on peat burning for their heating on a small scale will be met. The Minister has pointed out that a balance will be struck between the need to reduce emissions and improve air quality and respecting the traditional activity of citizens' turf cutting for their own use in rural areas. That fair balance would be welcome but we have not seen the detail of it. We are conscious the Government needs to do more to support people, especially those in rural Ireland who are dependent on peat for home heating.

In recent weeks, we have seen some dangerous equivocation between large-scale commercial mining and smaller domestic use. However, people's genuine fears and concerns about heating their own homes are not unfounded and our call is now to fast-track applications for retrofitting by prioritising households that are currently reliant on turf for home heating. Furthermore, we call on Government to explore the possible creation of a temporary band with a higher income threshold for accessing the fuel allowance, even at a reduced rate. This change would also widen access for households to the warmer homes scheme. Many of us hear of households that are missing out on that scheme and the fuel allowance by a mere handful of euro above the current eligibility rate. We cannot afford to maintain the status quoand we cannot afford to leave people behind. I ask that the Minister commit to fast-tracking retrofitting applications for such households.

I acknowledge the considerable importance of the issue of air pollution, and indeed the pandemic experience of the past two years has brought into sharp focus the importance of respiratory health and the need for measures to improve air quality. Nearly 20 years ago, the introduction of the smoking ban was an important health policy milestone, and we know that approximately 7,000 deaths have been prevented due to the reduction in passive smoke inhalation brought about by that progressive law. By contrast, we are still failing in our public health approach on air pollution from the burning of solid fuel. We know from estimates available to us that approximately 1,300 people die annually in Ireland due to the effects of air pollution from that burning of solid fuel. That is four people every day. The World Health Organization has described air pollution as the world's single biggest environmental risk. For public health reasons, as well as for climate reasons, we must phase out the burning of these materials.

My colleague, Deputy Kelly, began the process of introducing a nationwide ban on smoky coal in 2015. Despite subsequent attempts to make it happen from Opposition, some within Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have unfortunately resisted further measures on that policy. I am old enough to recall the days in the 1980s when you could see the pollution in the air in Dublin as a result of the burning of smoky coal. Anyone who remembers that will know the considerable improvements we have seen in our air quality as a result of progressive measures to tackle that.

However, the attempts to resist introduction of policies on air quality improvement have resulted in a sort of phony urban-rural war unfortunately being whipped up by some backbenchers in government. We need to move past this unhelpful narrative because we know that for the health of both urban and rural households and communities that we need to phase out the burning of smoky coal, peat and wood that has not been dried properly in tandem with providing real supports for people of the sort I have outlined in terms of accelerated retrofitting and expanded access to fuel allowance. We need an all-island strategy on air pollution in recognition of the contribution made by the importation of smoky coal from Northern Ireland. I hope Sinn Féin, as well as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, will reflect on this as we approach the assembly elections next week in the North.

On the climate emergency, I have already referenced the recent IPCC report. Those of us on the red-green left know the need for measures to tackle the climate and biodiversity emergency and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is why we in the Labour Party have supported, with some reservations, Government retrofitting plans and the carbon tax. It is also why we cannot support any further delay on an increase in the carbon tax.

This is the second motion Sinn Féin has tabled in two months which has sought, at a minimum, to scrap carbon tax increases. With such a focus in parliamentary activity, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Sinn Féin as a party is not serious about climate action. The evidence is clear.

Properly targeted carbon taxes can help in reducing emissions and in redistributing wealth to ensure polluters pay. Therefore, the Labour Party has called for new, targeted carbon tax credits to accompany the carbon tax, combined with targeted increases in fuel allowance eligibility and social welfare payments. Over time, the credit could be phased out as homes are retrofitted and renewable energy generation increases.

Carbon tax is clearly not the only mechanism to tackle the climate emergency - far from it - and neither is it the only reason for an increase in the cost of fuel. The same can be said for mining sod turf for commercial sale. We need other measures. We must ramp up retrofitting, promote active and sustainable transport and build our infrastructure to ensure electric vehicles are a real option for people living in more remote areas. We also need targeted financial supports for households on lower incomes, for renters living in poorly insulated homes and for people locked into dependence on unsustainable fields. Equally, we need ring-fenced carbon tax revenues to complement our investment in a just transition.

Therefore, to the drafters of this motion and to those in government seeking to undermine climate policies, a just transition does not mean delaying action until we have passed the point at which climate disaster has become irreversible. Under that model, we would see the catastrophic consequences of inaction weigh worst on those who have the least. It would be a false economy in the truest sense of the term. A just transition presents immense opportunities and it can provide for a genuine redistribution of wealth throughout the country. We are awaiting the launch of the national consultation on the national hydrogen strategy. I have called for this before. A green hydrogen strategy has the potential to enable Ireland to be a leader in decarbonising heavy industries and in addressing long-standing energy security concerns, which have been brought into sharper focus by the terrible war in Ukraine. We can be a leader in the generation and export of clean energy and create clean and decent jobs for workers. We can do this through enhancing our wind energy capacity and through our retrofitting adaptation and carbon capture policies, as well as through the green hydrogen approach.

Just as we did during the Covid-19 pandemic, we must trust the science. The mantra when we hear about climate change is that we must be honest about the nature of this crisis. A carbon tax and an end to the large-scale commercial sale of turf must form part of our national strategy to incentivise climate-friendly behaviour and to fund the necessary infrastructure to aid in the just transition I spoke about. We know polluters must pay, but that argument does not exempt us all from responsibility. Lending our voices to constructive proposals is a better use of parliamentary time than seeking to convince constituents that delaying climate action is the answer to their problems. The Dáil and Seanad are set to use three time slots this week to debate if we should do away with the albeit modest gains we have made for climate action. This would not be a good use of our time or of the platforms given to us by those who elect us. Therefore, I would prefer these opportunities for constructive debate, and I hope colleagues on both sides of the House will adopt that strategy too.

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