Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

The two biggest problems this Government has are the delivery of infrastructure and rip-off Ireland. The two elements are inextricably linked. The inability to deliver on infrastructure is hammering families throughout the country. It is adding to massive misery and difficulties for so many families in so many areas in terms of housing, electricity, water and transport. One of the reasons that is happening is that in this State at the moment, Government inaction around planning, permits, tendering, etc., has allowed that aspect to delay projects. Right now we have some of the slowest planning permissions delivered, the slowest permitting, the slowest licensing and the slowest tendering in the whole of the EU. Judicial reviews go on for years. As a result, key infrastructure gets snarled up in a process. None of that is by accident. It has not evolved by itself but as a result of legislation that the Government has been involved in for the past 15 years.

The second issue relates to the fact that electricity is holding up so many other aspects of infrastructure delivery. Right now, hundreds of homes in this State are not being built or are not connected and not lived in as a result of that lack of electricity. The lack of electricity infrastructure is slowing down the building of homes. That is an incredible indictment on the Government. In terms of price, spiralling costs are currently affecting families. There are 412,000 households in this country in fuel poverty. It is incredible that nearly half a million households in this country in fuel poverty. The prices of electricity are extremely high. Energy prices in Ireland are three times the wholesale prices. That is one of the biggest gaps in the world. The Government often tells us there are lots of reasons we have higher electricity prices than anywhere else in the world. However, the fact is that those reasons all lie under the wholesale price. Electricity prices here are three times higher than the wholesale price. The gap between the retail price of electricity and the cost of producing it is one of the highest in the world at the moment.

Electricity companies are failing to pass on the profits they are involved in. Why would they not? The ESB is a semi-State company. It is delivering Government policy. It is salting the people. It is involved in super-normal profits in terms of its revenue. The ESB made €706 million profit last year in a cost-of-living crisis. That is an incredible situation.

Even the pricing of electricity happens within this State as a function of the dearest element of the production of electricity. The Government is artificially increasing the price of electricity to make sure it is being priced at the dearest element, which is often gas. The Government's legislation is allowing for that.

In regard to retrofitting, about which I have heard people talk, only 22,000 homes reached the gold standard of B2 retrofitting last year. That is well short of the half a million households that are in the target for 2030. In terms of any retrofitting, only 54,000 homes were retrofitted at any level last year. There are 1.6 million homes in need of retrofitting. That means it will take 50 years to get to a retrofitting situation where families have a comfortable home with low energy costs.

The issue of data centres messes with my mind. We are told that we have to do so much to reduce the level of electricity usage and that we have to do our best to make sure we are a low-carbon economy. At the same time, the Government is flying high in terms of the increasing number of data centres coming into this sector. Data centres use 22% of all metered electricity in this State. That is way out of kilter in terms of the European Union which is about 3% or 4%. That figure is likely to reach 30% by 2030. There is one rule for the small family dealing with electricity but a different rule for the large multinationals. AI is going to drive that through the roof.

In terms of Storm Éowyn, two weeks after that storm 13,000 homes were still without electricity. Most of those homes were in the west or the midlands, showing again that this Dublin Government is forgetting about the west of Ireland in terms of infrastructure. One of the reasons it was hit so hard was that so much of our infrastructure is overground. Yet, this Government wants to proceed with the EirGrid north-south interconnector which is overground. We have been waiting for this infrastructure for 15 years. A bull-headed instinct by the Government to overground it is delaying it. Only 15% of homes, families and farms are going to allow EirGrid onto their property to build it. Some 85% of farmers are not going to allow it. It is going to remain in limbo for years as a result of this Government's instincts to force it overground.

We need a situation where we have investments but we have to free up the process, the red tape and bureaucracy that has been added on to the system by years of Fine Gael Governments that are slowing down the delivery of much-needed infrastructure. Unless we get to that we are just pouring that money into a bottomless pit. I see no real evidence that this Government means business when it comes to getting rid of the bureaucracy and red tape that are slowing down infrastructural development in this country.

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