Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to get the opportunity to contribute on this important topic.

I have never seen so many people so angry in recent times about what is happening to them and what is being allowed to happen to them by this Government. Electricity charges have trebled in the past 12 months. They have gone up every day since the Lanesboro and Shannonbridge plants were closed and the Government provided no alternative at that time. It was only when they were stuck last year, before the war, that they started buying coal from Russia and got Moneypoint up and running again. Indeed, electricity has gone way up three times or more since the start of the year. Many people, domestic, commercial and retail, cannot afford to pay the bills they are getting now. This includes small shops. I am aware of one small shop run by a man and his wife. Their electricity bill for the two months is up to €7,000 now, when it was less then €2,000. How can those people keep going? This is what is happening. We then hear the Taoiseach saying that he can get the money back from the electricity companies. He can of course because he allowed this to happen all year. The Government is a shareholder in these companies and it is getting dividends from them. He is saying now that he will get the dividends and give them back. It will be too late because he will not give it back directly to the people who paid it. He will not give it back at all to more people. You do not have to be Einstein to know that if electricity companies put up their charges by 300% they are going to have 300% profit, and that consumers will have to pay 300% more. The Government has let this happen all through the year and has stood idly by. Shame on the Government for allowing this to happen and to be promising that it will do something in the budget and maybe give back a couple of hundred euro here and there.

The Minister, Deputy Ryan, is the man who wanted one car to service 30 people in a small village. The Minister is not with it at all. The Minister is not in the real world if he thinks that one car would do 30 people in rural Ireland. The Minister wants no turf cutting. The Minister wants no gas burners or oil fires. At the same time the Minister has no alternative provided. I am glad that more turf is being cut this year than for many years and at least the people who have turf secured will be warm for the winter. I believe the Government is suggesting that the people who cut their own turf should make a contribution. I say to the Minister that they will not make any more contribution. They have their contributions made. As far as they are concerned they are self-sufficient now. The Minister, Deputy Ryan, and the Government did not give them any help to save or turn in the turf and they are not entitled to claim any dividends from the cutting or the saving of the turf.

When challenged about people being cold for the winter all the Government could say to them was to open their oven doors while they are cooking and that this would warm the house. God Almighty. Why is the Minister insulting so many people like this by advising people to grow vegetables in boxes in south-facing windowsills? Now the Minister and McConalogue are saying that people cannot plough or till the land. People have been tilling the land. It is widely recognised that even with horses and small tractors by tilling the land one will make it more fertile and need to spread less fertiliser. The Government does not want to give people any other option only wind turbines. Wind turbines do not blow all of the year. There are several other types of fuel. There is biofuel to help with road diesel and with tractor diesel. It is the same with petrol engines. We could use the same engines but the Government does not want to hear that. The Government will not entertain these companies. At the same time, a group of people from Ballymakeera were on to me in the past week. The Firebird company workers there are worried that their factory is going to be closed. It employs 160 people. They said that they can add biofuel and work their boilers to take HVO fuel, which includes biofuel, and that there would be no emissions from that. The Minister, however, does not want to listen to things like that. The Government has the daylights frightened out of people. Petrol cars could be converted to LPG gas but the Government does not want to hear about that. This was done back in the day in the 1970s. My late father had a car converted to gas.

Today we are demanding no more increases in standing charges. The Government can put legislation in place to ensure this. We call on the Government to give back every cent of the extra money that the Government has robbed from the people and put a cap on the ESB rate to that which applied this time last year. We call on the Government to open up Shannonbridge and Lanesboro immediately and to allow micro-energy companies to develop solar and water turbines. Many people are already producing extra electricity and they cannot get credit for it. Much more could be generated. We call on the Government to bring down the extra duty and taxes on road diesel and tractor diesel. The Government gave them back nothing. Home heating oil and petrol must be capped at the price being charged back in 2021.

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