Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This energy crisis is impacting everyone. I am fearful of the future. I refer to how we are driving people in every which way to use electricity, be it to heat their homes, using heat pumps, using electric vehicles and other transport. The question is how we are going to manage the supply of this energy in the future. We must plan for an increase in population. I know young couples who built houses and who went down the route of putting in heat pumps. They did everything right and in accordance with the regulations, ensuring that they had clean and passive types of houses. Then they received electricity bills of up to €1,200. That is unsustainable in any society. We have to rebalance and recalibrate our thinking in respect of this matter.

When building a house now, the construction costs relating to the mechanical and electrical installations and the modern appliances required to ensure that one can control one's heating system, be it of the underfloor variety or whatever, can amount to between €50,000 to €60,000. The comparable cost 20 years ago would have been a fraction of that. Construction costs are going up, and this is all deemed to be an investment in a greener economy and in saving our climate. What is being missed here is the increased cost of doing all of this as a result of the current energy crisis.

The reason we have an energy crisis is not all down to war; it is down to the fact that we are using more electricity and we are not producing green electricity. Closing down Shannonbridge and Lanesborough prior to having alternatives in place is a typical example of us putting the cart before the horse and not making sure that we had a plan in place to develop the green infrastructure we need prior to cutting off the existing heating mechanisms. A significant amount of local authority or social housing in this country is heated by Stanley 9 ranges, which, compliments of the tenants in those houses, are fed by turf. Until we retrofit all of these houses, people will have to continue to burn solid fuel in them. In order to ensure that people can heat their homes, we must be able to continue to cut turf. That is the reality; there is no alternative.

The retrofit scheme is there to help reduce energy use in houses. Earlier today, we saw an example of the costs of installing the various retrofit items that are required in a house increasing by more than 40% over a three-month period. The increase involved is from €59,000 to €80,000. That is the kind of investment people must make in order to try to comply with the vision for a greener world. The warmer homes scheme is great, but people must wait up to 24 months to have work on their houses. The microgeneration scheme is another great scheme, but, again, many people have been left with a bad taste in their mouths on the basis that the payback they were to get from the energy companies is not forthcoming or is not coming through quickly enough. They are getting a very small fraction of the energy cost. It is important that we look at what we are doing in terms of where we are going with all of this new technology. Are we making our houses healthier to live in? In ten, 15 or 20 years' time we could be retrofitting houses with something else.

Going back to energy supply and the cost involved, the energy companies must be quicker to reduce their prices when the cost of energy goes down. There is no excuse to hang in for a month or two afterwards and have the consumer bear the brunt of the cost. The profits that are being made on the back of the misery of people are immoral and should stop. The Government must challenge the energy companies more, and in a way that will ensure it gets results. As a small country, it is important for us to make sure that everybody is taken care of, be it the person who is on a fuel allowance or the person who has invested all of their money into a mortgage to build their own house. We must support these people right now. We cannot talk about another review, plan or policy document. We need to do it now.

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