Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Tonight we are discussing another motion on high energy costs, and with good reason. Everyone in this Chamber is receiving emails and is meeting constituents, families, individuals, carers, people with disabilities, those on low, fixed incomes, those who have to measure the value of every €5, indeed every euro, they spend, and people telling us they cannot make ends meet. They are making hard choices between food and fuel. They are afraid of their living lives of the next bill that arrives on their doorstep. This is not the story for everyone. Everyone is hit, but some are in crisis. The numbers in crisis are increasing week on week.

I have read the countermotion. The Government has provided both universal and targeted supports but are they enough to stop hundreds of thousands of people being unable to keep their homes warm? Are they sufficient to stop hundreds of thousands of people falling further into utility arrears? The answer to those questions is no, as evidenced by the most recent survey on income and living conditions conducted by the CSO. Those CSO statistics tell us that in 2022, 377,000 people were unable to keep their homes warm, an increase of 135% on 2021. Nearly 500,000 people have gone without heat, an increase of 28% on 2021. Almost 500,000 people are in utility arrears, an increase of more than 33%.

Those are just the headline figures and they hide the devastating picture for many families. When we focus on households unable to keep their homes warm enough, we see certain types of households are hit hardest. Of one-parent families, more than one in five cannot keep their homes warm. It is similar for those with a disability, people who are unemployed, carers and renters. Many people below the headline figures are in real trouble.

The Minister has put a number of measures in place but things are getting worse. The Minister cannot just speak of the long list of one-off payments in his countermotion without looking at the wider context and the real-life experience of people trying to pay bills day by day. The average electricity bill has increased by more than €100 every month. For a family which is caring, it is much higher than that. Home heating oil has increased by €100 to €150 per month. That is already an extra €250 per month. On top of that, inflation stood at 8% in 2022 and is expected to hit 6.3% in 2023. That is an increase of 15% over two years. Set that against the Minister's increase in budget 2023 of core social welfare payments by 12%. That was a 5% increase. Those payments are not keeping pace with inflation, or even close to it.

Inflation figures do not take energy inflation into consideration. Food inflation in the past year hit 12.8%; in the past three months, it is nearly 16%. That clearly shows further action by the Government is needed. It tells us of windfall taxes but they are already late and we do not have a date for their introduction. We have heard from many colleagues of the obscene profits - I will not list them because the Minister already has the list – made by energy companies. Is it any wonder that week after week and month after month the Opposition calls for an immediate windfall tax to be put in place and for further targeted supports for those who need them most?

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