Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Over two weeks her pay-as-you-go meter cost her €500 just to run an air-to-water heating system. How affordable is this on an old age pension? The Minister of State and I both know it is not. A young mother with the same heating system was left paying a bill of more than €3,000 to keep her house warm. It is no wonder we have food banks, and we have the Minister of State's colleague in Monasterevin looking after the food bank to fix the problem the Government created. We could not make it up. Spot the inequalities.

On the third day the Lord said "Let there be light" but he would not have done so if he was listening to the Government. There will not be light as people cannot afford it. Successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments systematically privatising our energy market have left us with no energy security, no price controls and at the whim of profiteering international corporations. It is time for change and we call for complete reform of the electricity market. We call for changes such as giving the regulator the power to effectively regulate. We all know where weak regulations got us in 2008. The wealth should be reinvested instead of allowing corporate stakeholders to cream off the profits. There should also be a fairer retrofit scheme. The Minister of State and I both know what Kildare County Council is like on retrofitting. It is all very fine to put in an air-to-water system but when the windows are falling out of the house effectively it is heating the garden. This needs to be addressed.

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