Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Ireland has the highest electricity costs in the whole of Europe, and that is not by accident. It is a strategic objective of this Government to increase the price of electricity and reduce the level of consumption in order to fulfil its climate change objectives. That is the whole truth of the matter. We have seen this debate rumble on for about two years, while the Government pretends to focus on reducing the price of electricity but does nothing whatsoever about it.

The idea that we are an outlier in terms of electricity costs is incredible. We are pushing people into poverty. Families are awake overnight wondering which bills they can pay. They are either going from overdraft to overdraft or are in the hands of moneylenders. The Government has allowed Electric Ireland to make massive profits without making any changes and has driven up taxes, in real terms, in respect of fuel. This is not just putting people into poverty; it is actually pushing people out of their jobs.

Along with other Deputies from Meath, I attended at a meeting last night with Tara Mines workers.

One of the reasons 650 people in Tara Mines are out of work at the moment and some 1,000 related jobs are in danger is because of the extraordinarily high price of electricity here. Similar mines at the same zinc price in Sweden are operational because they have a government that actually means business when it comes to reasonable electricity prices.

In the middle of the cost-of-living crisis, the Government has put up taxes on fuel in June. Tolls were increased in July. The Government put up taxes on fuel in September and again in October. How does that marry with the idea that the Government is concerned about people who are struggling in the cost-of-living crisis? Rather than giving help to people struggling in the cost-of-living crisis, the Government is going in the opposite direction.

The response to a parliamentary question that I tabled has shown that the Government is making more in tax receipts, in the jaws of the cost-of-living crisis, than it ever did before. This is an incredible situation. Interestingly, the Government is making more from extra taxes on fuel, plus the extra profits in Electric Ireland, than it is giving back to people in the electricity credits. It is taking from the taxpayer on one hand and giving it back on the other hand, and expecting a clap on the back for it. These one-off payments are very political. They are intended to give a feel-good feeling to citizens in the run-up to an election next year. The Government's approach is very cynical.

One of the reasons we have such high electricity costs is because the Government is failing in the delivery of capital projects. There is a real administration problem happening. Progress on projects is glacial and they are massively over cost. That is happening throughout society. In Midleton, for example, people suffered from floods back in 2015. In 2016, the Government said it would help but the planning application for the project has not yet gone into the county council. The Government is failing. It is being tied up in bureaucracy and red tape. There is also a massive amount of waste. Over the weekend, I listened to a Government spokesperson saying that one of the reasons capital projects are being slowed down is that people are taking court cases against planning applications. People are taking court cases, but those planning applications in their own right are glacially slow in their delivery. If court cases are taking a really long time, it is because the court system is horrendously inefficient. We do not have court cases going through the system in a speedy fashion. Ireland is creating major problems for itself regarding infrastructure and capital investment and it is going to get worse. We can see examples of this in the national children's hospital, the metro system and the situation in Midleton. Even the Navan to Dublin railway line is taking years to be built. The original line was built in three years in the 1850s by men using picks and shovels, but now the upgrade is taking 25 years to be delivered. If we cannot deliver capital projects, we cannot create energy efficiently to make sure there is competition and prices come down. The Government has a major responsibility in this regard. I urge rich Ministers to stop making decisions that are pushing struggling families into poverty on a weekly basis.

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