Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In my constituency of Dublin North-West, there are a significant number of areas that have a high percentage of elderly people. There are also areas of the constituency with a much younger population and who have young families. There are also some areas of economic disadvantage.

Unfortunately, unemployment rates are also high in areas of Dublin North-West and it is a constant struggle for many people to put food on the table for their families or to give them any sort of basic quality of life. We have also seen over the last number of winters how difficult it has been for families to heat their homes. The cost of energy has escalated to a degree that for some families heating their home is a luxury. This is unacceptable in this day and age. Electricity bills can generally make up a big part of annual household expenditure so this dependency on electricity and the increase in electricity costs will have a direct impact on the choices a family has to make. These choices are increasingly between paying the electricity bill or providing for their family.

Families have received eye-watering electricity bills in recent years that are impossible for many on low incomes, pensions or welfare to pay. This has impacted greatly on people's physical and mental health as well as their quality of life, especially for the elderly. There seems to be no respite for people for the foreseeable future and they will continue to have to pay these exorbitant electricity bills.

A number of people who have come to my constituency office have gone into significant arrears because of these huge electricity bills. This is causing huge anxiety among many people and many are terrified of being cut off altogether because of their accumulated arrears. The Government should do more to alleviate this situation, especially at domestic level. The Government needs to consider other interventions to address this escalating crisis in electricity costs.

Something is clearly wrong with the Government's approach. Before tax and other charges, electricity prices in Ireland are at least 60% above the EU average. The household energy price index shows that prices paid by Irish consumers are the second most expensive in all of Europe. This is largely down to a number of factors, including, for example, an over-reliance on fossil fuels over renewable sources when generating electricity. The Government needs to be more proactive in utilising those natural, renewable resources this country has an abundance of.

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