Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was canvassing last week in the Navan Road area, which is in my constituency, and I met Mary who is a pensioner. She and her husband have a very modest income after a lifetime of work. She said that she keeps the heating off and uses a blanket to keep warm when watching television. Mary showed me a bill of €800 for gas and one of €500 for the ESB. She said she managed to pay one off just as the other dropped in the letterbox. She is desperately worried about paying the ESB and the cycle will start all over again in the next couple of months. What is she to do? Mary, not just Sinn Féin, believes that the Government is not doing enough to help struggling families and workers. New figures released show that Ireland has the highest electricity prices in Europe. Wholesale gas prices have fallen. Why is this not being passed on to people? Electricity prices for households gradually went from being one of the lowest in Europe, before the energy market was privatised in 1996, to the highest in recent years. Energy poverty has doubled in the last year. What does the Government do? It increases the carbon tax by €7.50 per tonne. This hits home heating bills this month. People are literally praying for a hot summer, autumn, and winter this year. The Government has resisted energy market reforms at every turn. It is clearly not on the side of families and workers. What did I tell Mary that a Sinn Féin Government would do? We would introduce the windfall tax on the obscene super profits of the energy companies; provide real financial relief and certainty to households by reducing electricity prices and capping them, as has been done in Germany, Australia, and the Netherlands; reverse the increase in the carbon tax; and introduce regulatory powers for the Commission for Regulation of Utilities to address issues affecting the price that families pay for energy. I ask every Deputy to support this motion.

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