Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

If there was ever a crisis that highlighted the chasm between the pressure people are under and the lack of Government action, this is the crisis. Though this issue has been ramping up week after week since before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and at least since the start of the year, week by week, families are being squeezed dry of their money. Whole sections of our population are now falling into food poverty. Some 47% of the State is in energy poverty at the moment. It is outstanding that such a section of society would be dealing with such energy poverty. We have the ability to pay for energy, accommodation, food and necessities such as those, but this is slipping through the fingers of even middle-income families under the Minister’s Government.

The most frustrating element of all of this has been the apathy and the unwillingness of the Minister’s Government to change and take action. If I were to give a sentence summing up what the attitude of the Minister’s party has been, it is laissez-faire. Let the people look after themselves in this. It is mortifying that the Tories in London have committed to a windfall tax for energy companies before the Minister’s Government has even considered the issue at all. Green Party ideology is at the heart of this problem. We are the only country in Europe that does not have a gas reserve at a time when gas supply and gas prices are at the heart of this issue.

Incompetence is also at the heart of this issue. Just this week, Irish people have been able to draw down payment tariffs for the microgeneration of electricity in terms of small-scale wind, small-scale solar and bio-digestion. This is being done ten years after the Six Counties have done so and we are the last country in Europe to be able to do that. Just this week, I listened to the Minister, Deputy Ryan, speak in measured tones about the seriousness of offshore wind energy as all the Ministers gathered around from all over Europe. Twenty years have gone by and seven offshore wind turbines have been built off the coast of Ireland. That is incompetence on a grand scale. The Minister refused to reduce the VAT on fuel, citing that the European Union will not allow it, yet Spain has already achieved this and has reduced the VAT on fuel. The Government is still allowing for carbon tax to increase year after year. It is unforgivable that the Government is increasing carbon tax when people are suffering so much. The Government has refused to decouple the price of non-gas generated electricity from gas-generated electricity.

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