Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

My office is inundated with correspondence from householders and small business owners who cannot pay their energy bills. We know that there is an energy bills crisis and that the crisis is not new. Indeed, it is now 13 months since we in the Labour Party brought forward a Dáil motion on the cost-of-living crisis and energy prices.

While the situation was severe a year ago, it is intolerable now. We saw the latest Central Statistics Office, CSO, survey on income and living conditions confirm that the number of people at risk of poverty rose by 76,000 last year and that this rise was driven by an increase in the number of older people at risk of poverty. Our Labour Party representatives have been hearing from pensioners who have had to resort to taking out credit union loans just to meet the cost of their energy bills. Adding insult to injury are the unfairness and inequity of the crisis and the Government's hands-off approach, which has exacerbated that unfairness. We now see wholesale electricity prices falling but providers refusing to pass that benefit on to working families and households. All the while, companies are reaping record-breaking, eye-watering profits. Now we see that Electric Ireland is to cut small businesses' electricity bills by 10% from tomorrow. This is welcome news for SMEs, which we know are struggling to break even. Electric Ireland has also confirmed, however, that it will leave household charges untouched.

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