Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The cost-of-living crisis is pushing households to the brink. Price hike after price hike has workers and families to the pin of their collars, with no sign of the spiralling costs coming down. It is plain to see that people cannot afford Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in government any longer. People are at their wits' end. Rents are soaring, mortgage interest rates are rocketing and grocery prices and energy bills keep shooting upwards. People cannot stretch any more. There is nothing else left to cut back on. Last month, research revealed that Irish electricity prices are the highest in Europe. Gas prices are the highest in Europe as well. This will come as no surprise to consumers who open their bills to see eye-watering amounts being demanded. Energy credits have been long spent and the Government is merely sitting on its hands.

I wish to tell the Minister about one lady's recent experience of this crisis. An elderly lady in County Laois, living alone after her husband sadly passed away last year, received an electricity bill for €760, a colossal amount that she simply cannot afford. She applied for an additional needs payment to help cover the cost. Shockingly, she was refused support because she put a small amount away from her pension over the past year to save for a headstone for her late husband's grave. She was forced to spend that money on the electricity bill instead of the headstone because of that refusal for help. Her husband's anniversary is approaching and she is distraught that she will not have that headstone for his grave on time. Yet, when her family called around to visit last night, they found her sitting in the dark, terrified of switching on the lights, worried sick about what the next bill might be and when these nightmare costs are going to end. This is appalling. What does it say about us and the society that we are living in under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that this is the lived reality for a lady of that age. Another older person let down by the Government is a 90-year-old woman in Dublin whose gas bills have gone from €200 to €600. She simply does not have the money for this. Unsurprisingly, she has fallen into arrears. After questioning the bills, she was threatened with disconnection. She is absolutely beside herself; she is 90 years of age.

A few weeks ago, Sinn Féin brought forward a plan to cut energy costs and cap them, which would have made a real difference to hard-pressed households but the Government blocked the plan and failed to offer up any solutions of its own. The Government acts like a spectator to the catastrophe unfolding for workers and families the length and breadth of this State. Instead of acting, it has abandoned people who need support now. From energy costs to food prices, spiralling rent and mortgage interest rates, it is clear that we cannot afford to have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government any longer. What will it take for the Government to get its act together? When will it give people the support they need to weather this cost-of-living crisis? What action will it take to cut energy costs and give households, like those two ladies and countless others, the much-needed break they need from ever-increasing costs?

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