Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I visited the PrepayPower website this morning.

The website states: "If you do not keep your PPP PAYG [PrepayPower pay-as-you-go] Meter topped up with credit, it will self-disconnect and your electricity supply will cut off." On vulnerable customers, it states that:

The CRU has put in place a rule whereby [registered] Vulnerable Customers cannot be disconnected for non-payment of [arrears] during winter months. [This applies to both gas and electricity.] It is important that all of our customers ... categorised as Vulnerable ... understand that this rule cannot apply to them whilst on our [pay-as-you-go] supply.

This is five days after the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications met representatives of this company and hailed the exchanges as a result for prepay customers. Are there minutes of this meeting? Can we see them please?

While I am at it, if energy companies are being spoken to as stakeholders, why is the Minister not also speaking to pay-as-you-go customers? Are they not stakeholders too or are some stakeholders more important than others? The Minister might learn a thing or two if he bothered to speak to customers. He might hear about the households that never stock the freezer up full for fear of the electricity going off. He might hear about the housing estates where security alarms go off every Friday in homes that cannot afford to top up their electricity before payday. He might hear about the contempt people have for the phrase "self-disconnect", which trips so easily from the lips of energy bosses and some Government Deputies these days.

I am sure the Taoiseach has realised this but I will spell it out for him just in case he has not; the news is not good for him or his Government if the moratorium does not mean a moratorium for all and unless there are zero disconnections this winter. If that does not happen, the personal stories of people who have been disconnected will be read aloud every day in this Chamber and his promise that there will be no disconnections will come back to haunt him. Is this what he wants in the run-up to 15 December? Is this what the Tánaiste wants in the days following that date? It is now time to go harder with these energy companies. I await the Taoiseach's reply to the questions.

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