Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mairead McGrath and Brian Ó Domhnaill in our office for helping us to put the motion together. According to the latest consumer price index, CPI, the rate of inflation illustrates a 9.2% increase in the cost of living between October 2021 and October 2022. The rate of inflation in Ireland is being driven by the cost of energy. The cost of gas has spiked by 93.3% in the past 12 months, the cost of electricity has increased by a staggering 71.2%, the cost of home heating oil by 65% and solid fuels by 47%. The cost of heating and keeping the lights on in homes, small businesses, schools - I previously made the point in the Chamber that some schools are going cap in hand to the local parish priest for help - and community facilities is becoming extremely challenging for many and is forcing several more into undisputed poverty.

I have been contacted by family-owned supermarkets across County Cork. I have met those families and been to their premises. They do not know how their doors will stay open. I met representatives of the hotel industry in Clonakilty and its surrounds in recent months. They do not know if they will be able to keep their doors open. They are telling me the only way they can pay some of these bills is to have their family members work for free in the months ahead. This is an astonishing situation. They will not be able to take a wage themselves in the same period. That is how bad things are becoming.

The Government has failed to take any steps whatsoever to tackle the root cause of energy-induced inflation. Instead, during this inflation crisis the Government has allowed energy suppliers and renewable energy producers to make record financial profits on the back of ordinary consumers. That is why the Rural Independent Group has moved this motion. The simple objective of the motion is to provide cheaper electricity prices for households and small businesses. Almost every day, we hear the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, speak about the increased amount of wind-generated electricity that is supplying the national grid. At the same time, however, the price of electricity for ordinary people is climbing higher and higher. This is resulting in the great wind farm rip-off, where greedy energy giants sell us wind electricity at sky-high wholesale gas prices.

Renewables only generate electricity for very short periods when the wind blows or the sun shines. Most of the time, Ireland relies on conventional energy. That is why we need a backup system for when there is no wind. We have to pay very high prices if a gas-fired power plant is only being used half the time because wind energy is given preferential treatment. When such a plant is used, the owner will ask for astronomical sums. When wind energy is backed up by conventional energy, prices go through the roof and that cost is added to the average energy bill. The more wind farms there are, the more expensive the cost will be. This was happening long before the price of gas went up.

To make matters worse, the Government intends to pump taxpayers' funds into the renewable electricity support scheme, RESS, with an estimated budget of €7.2 billion, and to provide €12.5 billion for green power production from sources including solar and wind farms. All eligible technologies will compete for subsidies through auctions under RESS, with preferential treatment being given to a small number of energy producers for offshore wind. It is clear that the lobbying power and influence of these international corporations paid off. These companies are to be given 15 years in the form of a premium on top of the market price. This is on top of the massive profits the companies are making. Then we have the Government coming out with electricity credits. While welcome, in reality they are nothing more than crumbs from the table. They merely serve to increase the profits of energy companies as they retain the money, thus driving costs higher and doing nothing to tackle the existing underlying problems.

The motion calls on the Government to accept that the cap is one of the best ways to reduce domestic and small business electricity prices, with renewable energy producers still well able to recover their investment and operating costs. It also calls on the Government to implement electricity price-setting for the supply of electricity for households and small and medium-sized enterprises and accept that the current Irish wholesale pricing system is broken, as prices for all market participants are set by the last plant needed to cover the demand, which is the plant with the highest marginal costs when the market clears, and given the unprecedented rise in costs for gas and coal-fired power generation facilities, this generally results in such plants establishing the price and simultaneously results in exceptionally high prices in the day-ahead market, with renewable energy producers experiencing very significant increases in their revenues. It also calls on the Government to immediately seek to implement an excess-profit solidarity tax, as provided for in EU Regulation 2022/1854 upon all or any companies and permanent establishments operating within the oil, gas, coal and refinery sectors in Ireland, which includes the Corrib gas field, and give these funds back to consumers to help pay for energy bills. Finally, it calls for an end to the Government's practice of having lucrative long-term deals with energy companies that allow them to inflate prices while obtaining Government subsidies and simultaneously burdening working-class consumers with sky-high energy prices.

To be honest, Ireland needs energy independence. We have been skirting around this idea, whereas the rest of the world is going straight ahead, as per normal. They are letting on there are all these climate action controls but we saw what happened at COP27 last week, where 400 private government jets flew to Egypt. In the name of God, what damage did that do to the climate? It is absolute hypocrisy when you consider they were telling the poor ordinary people on the street to tighten their belts and think about their emissions but they flew in the lap of luxury on private jets. What has that done to the environment? Did it not matter that week because it was COP27 and they could spend their time telling us, the ordinary people, what to do and how to do it? I sought clarity for months from the office of the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, on whether a gentleman in west Cork could put one bag of turf at the back of a trailer in a market and sell a few lumps of turf. It took months to get the answer, and that answer was that he cannot do so. The governments can fly in private jets all over the world with no problem at all, however. The Government thinks it is codding the people but it sure is not codding everyone. It has conned a few people all right but not everyone is blind.

I refer to Barryroe and the opportunities off the Barryroe field. The contracts to be finished are in the Minister's office but he will do nothing apart from let it drag on. He will kick the can down the road. We can bring in fracked gas from abroad and all that and that is all right. The Government thinks nobody will cop that, as if we are all stupid and foolish. We are not foolish at all, however. Liquified natural gas, LNG, floating terminals offer super opportunities for Cork Harbour, Shannon and other places. It is an opportunity to get clean and efficient fuel moving and make the country energy independent. Again, this Government made up of the Green Party, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, with the Green Party wagging the tail, has refused that movement, so we keep bringing it in. Import away; there is no issue there.

I spoke about the 400 jets but today we heard that kettles and fridges are going to be removed from offices throughout the country to cut back on energy consumption. You cannot have a bag of turf on the back of a trailer and you cannot have a kettle in your workplace but you can fly in a private jet all you want and fill it with all the types of fuel you want and there is no issue there about the climate. There is no such thing as hopping on a commercial flight to Egypt, not even in first class. They could not do that at all. That would not look good across the world. It is a complete con job that is going on.

I heard a Deputy from west Cork giving out that Christmas lights are not being put up in his town by the council. He is sitting in government, delighted. The fact is that there might a blackout this Christmas or next Christmas and there will be no Christmas lights in any town in west Cork.

He is oblivious to what is happening in our country.

We should also talk about transport but it is a different area. I commend West Cork Connect, which started a new route. Again, this was done by a private company because the State was not going to cover anything in west Cork when it came to transport. This private company will start running a route from Kinsale to Cork city via Ballinhassig on a daily run on 9 January 2023. We are lucky to have a company like it. It has looked after our needs throughout west Cork while Bus Éireann sits idly by and hopes everything will fall into place and it does not.

Energy independence was where we should have been and we are not there today and will not be there. It is coming at a huge cost to the consumer.

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