Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

The Minister will be well aware that in our alternative budget last year we argued that energy credits of €450 should be brought forward. The Government brought forward energy credits of €250. The Minister listed off various measures. As I said earlier, I am not taking away from those measures but what I am telling him is that things have got worse. The reality is that regardless of whether he believes he has protected people, there are more households than ever before - over 300,000 - that cannot pay their electricity bills. Regardless of what the Government did last year, things have got worse. The crisis has deepened and two things are about to happen. First, nearly 1 million households are going to see electricity prices go up, on average, by 10% in the next two weeks. Second, the Government and the Minister for Finance are going to withdraw the energy credits that those households were dependent on for the last three years. What I am saying to the Minister is that he should deal with the reality. The fact is that people are drowning under a cost-of-living crisis. Things have got worse in the last year - that is just a fact - and they are about to get even worse again because of two measures. One is the electricity companies ripping people off and gouging them again and the other is the Minister's decision to cancel electricity credits in this year's budget.

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