Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies for their contributions over the course of the debate. I am disappointed the Government has tabled a countermotion. I do not accept its rationale or argument. We have to look at the evidence, which is that large numbers of people are in arrears with their electricity bills, with 10% of domestic and commercial electricity customers and 25% of domestic and commercial gas customers in arrears. Energy poverty is at an all-time high. We have imperfect measures for all of these things. If we look at those working in the sector, such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Social Justice Ireland and MABS, we see there is a crisis in terms of the cost of living. The cost of energy is in the middle of this.

The Government congratulates itself on the delivery of renewables. A number of people raised the issue of the Government missing its targets and issues with regard to planning, ports not being up to standard and the ownership models. Sinn Féin recognises the role of the private sector but the State should take a leading role with State ownership and community ownership. This is what we mean by turning our natural resources into national wealth. It is a fair point that state companies in France and Norway own more of our wind resources at present than the Irish State and this needs to be addressed.

With regard to regulation, I have not heard anything from the Government on why it does not believe it makes sense for the regulator to act on regulating standing charges to address the issue of the public service obligation, as was indicated by Deputy Nash, or to act on the issue of network charges to ensure they are progressive instead of regressive. This should be done. I do not believe there is any argument against it. I have not heard an argument from the Government in this regard or what it will do about it.

We have done a lot of work in the area of retrofitting in my office and we have prepared counterproposals. I have to say I feel it is one of the issues we will reflect on in years to come, when serious questions will be asked about the national retrofitting programme. It is a statement of fact that it is a massive transfer of wealth. It is a challenge to get to the nub of the issues here when we throw out large figures. The Minister has specifically said we have the highest level of retrofitting per capita. This may be a statement of fact but for me the question is who is benefiting from this massive spend of taxpayers' money. Without doubt it is the case that it is not being spent on those people who are most in need. People in a solid fuel home, a council house, on the warmer home scheme or just above the eligibility threshold for that scheme see no benefit in terms of the national retrofitting programme.

We are seeing significant roll-out of domestic solar panels and that is welcome, but who is it going to? It is delivering a lot of B2 BERs because it is going on homes that are already cosy and well insulated. We need to drill into the details of the national retrofitting programme. When that is done, time and again, we see - these are not Sinn Féin's words but we agree with them - a transfer of wealth. There is an affordability gap, which has been identified by many groups that work with people who live in energy poverty. We welcome the spend under the scheme, although Sinn Féin would spend more, raise the money in a different way and deliver better outcomes.

The heart of this motion is about delivering on the potential to manage the energy transition and to deliver energy security and independence and reduced electricity costs for households and businesses and lift people out of energy poverty. The Government is failing to deliver on all that potential and it is a crying shame.

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