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

I propose that NESC and, indeed, the Government urgently look into the question of the nationalisation of our entire energy sector. I want to demonstrate one example to show the Taoiseach the problems we face. That example is the bills over the course of a year of one woman on a district heating system in an area in Dun Laoghaire. In the bill from January to March, the tariff is 0.8 cent per kWh; in the next bill, it is 21 cent; in the next, it is 38 cent; and in the next, it is 49 cent per kWh. These are multiples of even the extortionate increases for ordinary people who are not caught, but trapped, on district heating systems. I mentioned Enniskerry Road, where the picture is similar in the cost-rental development that the Government trumpeted. This is insanity. It is grossly unfair and it is causing incredible hardship for people that profit-hungry, very profitable energy companies are, willy-nilly, charging unaffordable rates. There is no cohesion to the thing and people on that estate have been cut off.

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