Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)

First, we support the need for this Bill but objected to the fact that there was no pre-legislative scrutiny. I hope the Minister will look at our amendments in good faith.

The ESB must focus on the public good. The Minister will have heard me on several occasions, here and in the planning committee and the infrastructure committee, talking about the need to strengthen the infrastructure to strengthen the grid but that it cannot be just for data centres. We have to make sure that the grid is fixed. It has been weakened by decades of lack of investment and we have to make sure that we are prioritising the grid to make sure that we can deliver the homes we so need. I was talking in the infrastructure committee today where we had the construction workers in. I was saying that when you go away on your holidays, no matter how lovely the hotel was, when you come home and you get into your own bed with your own pillow, there is nothing like it, and we have now passed the point of 5,000 children homeless. The Government is shameless. We have to make sure that by investing in the grid, we are making sure that it is for houses and not data centres. We have to treat energy as a public good and not just about increasing the data centres.

In subsection (4B), we want to strengthen the transparency and oversight. We were not happy about not having pre-legislative scrutiny. We have to make sure that the ESB publishes its annual reports and spending outcomes and price impacts.

Subsection (4C) prohibits the higher household electricity tariffs. I was talking to somebody a few weeks ago and they were saying that we used to have the cheapest energy in Europe and now have the dearest. It makes no sense.

We absolutely support the need for investment in the ESB but we have to make sure that it is done for the public good and not to supply more data centres with energy. I hope the Minister will look at that and that he agrees there has to be oversight on the expenditure of public money in the ESB.

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