Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I could pick on part of Deputy Ó Murchú's last comment and spend the next 20 minutes very easily answering how we got here. It was obvious to me when I was the Minister with responsibility for energy. Some of the officials present will know, from the quite heated discussions I had in the Department and at Cabinet, that I was aware the lack of management of energy demand on the grid was going to create a significant problem for us. I flagged this back in 2017 when it became very obvious to me what was going on. This should not come as a surprise to anyone. At that stage, when we were designing the new renewable electricity support scheme, we included in the new scheme a specific windfall tax for renewable energy providers were they to end up in a scenario like they are in today. Any of the operators now producing electricity under the renewable energy support scheme I designed, as Minister, are subject to a clawback built into it. The difficulty is my predecessors, including the Minister, Deputy Ryan, who designed the previous scheme, did not put that clawback in place. That is part of the reason we are in the situation we are today.

Another part of the reason is we decommissioned some of our capacity to meet the 450 MW deficit we have at present. The impression being given was that we were decommissioning old kit, but that was not the case. Both the power plant in Lanesborough and the one in Shannonbridge had a ten-year lifespan left in them. Back in December 2020 I questioned the Tánaiste on the closure of those plants in this House. I pointed out at that time that Kieran Mulvey, the Government's just transition commissioner, had described the two plants as being in a "pristine state". That is why I, when Minister, took the decision that we would transition these plants away from burning peat to burning indigenously-sourced biomass. Not only would it have ensured security of energy supply, but it would have also provided a fair transition from peat to domestically-sourced biomass and allow farmers across the midland counties, struggling to make an income from beef production, to move into production of biomass where there would be a guaranteed, contracted price available to them. This would have created local jobs and provided a sustainable income for local farmers. However, it did not happen.

Some of the people wringing their hands today are the very ones who were giving rounds of applause and going on local radio and national television to say closing down these plants was a great thing. The closure of those plants led to the effective wasting of €176 million of electricity customers' money, because that money had already been paid for those two power plants that had a ten-year lifespan left in them.

Electricity customers are again being asked to put their hands in their pockets to pay for the mistakes of decisions made. It is frustrating to think that not only are electricity customers paying for this, but we also have the perverse situation that we are now suspending our environmental laws to allow us to facilitate the commissioning of diesel generators to replace what would have been these two biomass plants in Lanesborough and Shannonbridge. On top of the €176 million in lost payments that have already gone to the ESB for these plants, we are asking every family in this country to pay an extra €40 for the replacement 450 MW that must now be provided as a result of this legislation. A point I made back in December 2020 was that we would be forcing electricity customers to pay for the replacement of the power plants in Lanesborough and Shannonbridge, as well as for the decommissioning of those plants.

While I am on the issue of customers' pain, the one way people can try to avoid these additional costs concerning electricity is to retrofit their homes. We know what has gone on with the warmer homes scheme for people in fuel poverty. If I have time, I will come back to this issue at the end.

I will turn now to the better energy, warmer homes scheme for people accessing the grant for the new retrofit scheme. As the Minister of State will know, this is something that is close to my own heart. I piloted the deep retrofitting scheme when I was the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, and I wanted to see it mainstreamed. As soon as the application process opened, I applied for it for my house, which is an old one. I went through the process in this regard. The agent, through the one-stop shop I was working with, told me there was now a condition that it was necessary to have a home energy assessment carried out before making any decisions. It was necessary to pay upfront for that home energy assessment, which I did. Information concerning the cost of carrying out the work came back and the amount of grant aid I would get. I decided to go ahead with the project. The home energy assessment was completed in August 2022. The one-stop shop contractor approved by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, then got each of its agents to come in and do the pricing for this project. In the first week of November 2022, I got the final price back from them, with the contract to start work.

Between August and November 2022, the cost had gone up by 33%. The cost to me, as a homeowner, had gone up by 53%. The reality is that the home energy assessment is nothing but a three-card trick. The Government is extorting additional taxation out of people to carry out a home energy assessment which is not worth the paper it is written on. In fact, in my case, and the cases of many others, what it did was to discourage us. People postponed the carrying out of works on their homes, which would have reduced their energy costs last winter, because they went through this farcical process. This is a practical example of what is happening right across the country.

If we look at the figures, and from talking to people who I encouraged to go through this process, the exact same problems have been encountered. Once they have engaged with a contractor, people find that the figures, in the context of those approved and authorised by the SEAI following the home energy assessment process, have absolutely nothing to do with those derived from the home energy assessment. If we want to get people to take up this scheme, then we must go back and look at the basic mathematics concerning it.

I refer to the point I made regarding forcing electricity customers across this country, who are already struggling to pay their electricity bills, to pay for the mistakes and the additional electricity being put into large energy users across this country. It is immoral, wrong and should not be happening.

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