Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

A warm welcome to the visitors from Claregalway and the people from the United States. The ambassador is also most welcome. Cuirim fáilte rompu go léir.

More than a million households will be hit with big hikes in their electricity bills this month. This morning we have further proof of what we have been saying for a long time, that energy companies are brazenly ripping off customers in Ireland. Irish energy bills are three times higher than the wholesale cost. That is price gouging, plain and simple. It is a rip-off, plain and simple.

A new report from the International Energy Agency reveals that these companies are refusing to pass on the drop in wholesale price to their customers. Big energy companies are making bumper profits on the backs of working households, and hundreds of thousands of those already cannot afford to pay their bills. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael see this energy rip-off happening, but they stand back and do nothing. They refuse to take on the energy companies and they vote down our proposals to get energy costs under control. Worse still, in last week's budget, they removed energy credits from hard-pressed households. Their deference to the energy companies is, of course, in keeping with the terrible budget the Government announced last week, a budget that looks after those at the top and leaves ordinary workers worse off. That reality was confirmed by the ESRI on Friday.

The Taoiseach's suggestion at the weekend that people do not get the budget, that they need to look at it from a different angle, took some cheek. People do not have to bend over backwards to see what is staring them in the face: no break on their income tax, no increase in the renters' credit, no cut in childcare fees, no increase in child benefit and no cost-of-living package, but the Government could find the money for sweetheart tax breaks for developers, big landlords and the banks, while all its big election promises disappeared like snow off a ditch.

The budget was written as though the cost-of-living crisis was a thing of the past, but at the very time it was announced, households heard that they face the biggest price squeeze in 18 months. It is not just electricity. Households are hit with hikes in food prices, in their health insurance premiums, and instead of working to get costs down for households, the Government hiked up fuel prices, student fees and the local property tax. There is no end in sight. The Government knew all of this when it signed off on this budget. It knew that people would be hammered with big electricity bills and soaring prices, and yet it chose to abandon them anyway. Tá comhlachtaí fuinnimh ag feannadh teaghlaigh le hardaithe móra sna billí leictreachais. Thréig buiséad an Rialtais oibrithe an uair seo chun aire a thabhairt dóibh siúd atá ar bharr an dréimire.

Winter now approaches and people will leave their lights and heating on for longer. The rip-off bills they receive will be a body blow for families. The Government has done nothing to help pay one single bill or to ease the pressure on households. People have known for a long time that they are being gouged and ripped off on their energy bills. The Government now has further proof of that fact. Will the Taoiseach set out clearly what he will do to end this rip-off?

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