Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In fairness, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, cannot be held responsible for global fluctuations in energy prices but he can and he does bear responsibility for the Government's failure to get to grips with it and with the failure to properly support families who have been financially crippled by it. The truth is that Irish families were already stretched to breaking point. This country has long had some of the highest rents, mortgage interest rates, insurance costs and fuel prices in Europe but now the geniuses who make up this current Government have managed to oversee a new record. We are now paying the highest electricity prices in Europe. There was a time when we were almost the lowest. Irish customers are paying 72% above the EU average.

When prices were increasing, it was always down to global factors and international influences but when wholesale prices come down, Ministers tell us it is down to peculiarities in the Irish situation, which means that Irish families must be crippled. The truth is that the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and his Cabinet colleagues have not had the guts or the inclination to actually face down the energy companies. My fear is that there are some within government who are quite happy to see Irish customers fleeced by high energy costs. How else can we explain that this week they have overseen another increase implemented by the Government in many energy costs through another hike in the carbon tax?

When measures are put forward that might give families and workers a break, the Government resists them. When there were efforts to decouple energy from gas prices at European level, it was the Irish Government that frustrated those efforts. When there were efforts to tax the obscene profits being made by energy companies, it was the Irish Government that resisted them. Now that measures have been taken at an EU level, it is the Irish Government that is actually acting in the most minimalist way possible.

The motion tabled by Deputies O'Rourke and Doherty takes a very different tack. It is about putting people ahead of energy companies. It is about recognising the stresses that people are going through. It is about saying that Irish people cannot be expected to take the entire burden that has been put on them and that we will not tolerate the excuse of international conflicts or international factors when we know that there are domestic measures that can be taken here at home and that are being taken in many other European states that would provide our workers and our families with the break they so desperately need. I commend the motion to the House.

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