Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is a TD like the rest of us. I like to believe that he is speaking to his constituents like the rest of us. They are facing this impossible burden, especially people who struggle to pay their rents, mortgages and bills every week. The increased cost of electricity and gas is an impossible burden. Our small businesses face exactly the same burden.

This did not happen out of nowhere. It was intentional Government policy that whenever EU liberalisation rules kicked in, nobody embraced privatisation more than the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments we had in this country. They approached it with absolute relish. They would have made Margaret Thatcher blush. We went from having some of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, electricity prices in all of Europe to today being the most expensive place to have electricity in all of Europe. That is the impact of intentional Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael government policies.

It did not stop there. When it came to challenging the major businesses that have made huge profits on the backs of our people, and took huge advantage of this crisis and the invasion of Ukraine, again and again we asked the Government when it would bring in a windfall tax. Again and again, it resisted until finally the European Commission forced it to do so. Still, it was a limited version - too little, too late. The Government is soft on those who profit on the backs of our people. It has allowed these companies to emerge from the privatisation agenda and has not curtailed them. The motion tabled by Deputy O'Rourke is about dealing with that light-touch regulation and with the fact that communities want to develop renewable energy projects but cannot do so because they cannot access the grid. They cannot afford to do it. The whole game is stacked in favour of those who profit on the backs of our people. This happened intentionally. This continues intentionally and deliberately.

The Government has a five-point plan and detailed policy. It asks us again and again for our solutions. It has the solutions but has it the will to confront those who profit on the backs of our people, who push families into energy poverty, and who push businesses out of business? That is the challenge from Sinn Féin. I hope the Government accepts it.

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