Dáil debates

Wednesday, 14 September 2022

Measures to Assist with Household Bills: Motion [Private Members]

 

8:35 pm

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To insert the following after "not made during the period of the crisis": "— examine the measures needed to develop a wholly publicly owned and not-for-profit energy system, including the nationalisation of all existing energy generation in the State in order to fully address both the current energy crisis and the climate crisis"

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion on the cost of living and for giving us an opportunity to discuss what is a really dire crisis. This People Before Profit amendment is simply an addition to the Sinn Féin motion. We agree with all the proposals Sinn Féin has put forward. We are adding an amendment suggesting that we must look as a matter of urgency at the question of taking the energy production and supply sector in this country into public ownership and running it on a not-for-profits basis to address the immediate crisis we are facing but also to have a sustainable situation in terms of providing the energy we need for our people to live, for our society and, indeed, to tackle the climate emergency we face. We think the time has come when we must look at doing that.

I want people to dwell a little bit on the term "cost of living". If we think about the term "cost of living", it is an absolutely disgusting phrase. Think about it - there is a price tag attached to living. There are companies who make money by giving or not giving people the things they need to live. It is considered acceptable that private for-profit corporations control those things people need to live and have the power not to give them to people or charge so much for them that people cannot afford them. These are things that people need to live. This is not discretionary spending like popping off somewhere for a holiday or going to a very expensive restaurant, but things people need to live. There is a cost to it and a price tag and there are people who profit precisely from the fact that a person may not be able to afford those things or that there is a shortage in the supply.

That is obscene, but it is the reality of the cost-of-living crisis. Hundreds of thousands of families, pensioners, students, working people and people with disabilities are fearful that they will not be able to afford the cost of those things that people need to live this winter - heating their homes, providing hot water, putting food on the table, paying their bills and paying their rent. What a terrifying prospect, yet at the same time, the companies that provide the things and own the resources that people need to live are enjoying a bonanza in profits. It is immoral and obscene that that could be the case, that the shareholders of those companies are enjoying a bonanza and people are sitting back who have done nothing yet are seeing their wealth and profits increasing while other people are scared, suffering and enduring real hardship.

This is not just true of energy, but also of the housing crisis. A man in his mid-70s came to me this week. He had worked all his life in construction - he had been a project manager - and had built many of this city's large shopping centres. He broke down in tears in front of me. He is 76 years of age and he just broke down in tears because his landlady was selling the place where he had lived for years. He has never been on the housing list, so he has no chance of getting social housing. He will go on the list, but he does not have even the remotest prospect of getting somewhere to live and there is nowhere for him to rent. As he cried in my office, he told me that he had paid his taxes and worked all his life and had never asked for anything but was now facing the prospect of homelessness. He asked me what he was supposed to do. This is the type of suffering that people are enduring.

It is not morally acceptable that old people, people with disabilities and families with children will turn off their heating this winter when they need it, will not have money to pay their bills and will cut back on food. The State has the resources, and the companies which are generating significant profits, have the money to sort out this crisis and shield people from it if there is a willingness on the part of the Government to use those resources and redistribute the profits that are being made in order to protect those who are suffering. It is entirely a political choice of the Government to protect either the interests of ordinary people or the interests of large corporations.

I will make a brief proposal. With all the money the Government has, it should buy up some of the empty properties that are being constructed at the moment. Either investment funds buy them or we use our money to buy them in order to deliver affordable and public housing at scale quickly. If we use that extra money to do so, we will make a serious dent in the housing crisis. This is a serious proposal. The Government is saying that it has all of this extra money but that it cannot depend on that money in future years. That is a fair point, but it is worth saying that corporate tax receipts are due to increase from €15 billion to €20 billion this year. That means that there has been an increase of approximately 33% in the corporate sector's profits this year. That is staggering. We should deliver public housing by using that money to buy up all of the property that is being constructed and will otherwise be bought by international investment funds. We could deliver thousands of additional public housing units. Where anyone is threatened with eviction from a housing assistance payment, HAP, or rental accommodation scheme, RAS, tenancy, let us buy the house immediately, prevent people from being put on the street and save the State money in the long term.

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