Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

It is important that we discuss this and that we do so thoroughly. At this time of the year we are more conscious than ever of this issue. Many of us are homeowners and we live in our homes. A lot of us here also rent. We have bills during the summer but as we face the winter a different set of costs often come onstream from a gas perspective, and this puts it back on homeowners. In recent years we have had the energy credits and they have made it easier for a number of people as prices reach their highest levels in the history of the State due to what happened in Ukraine. The previous Government looked to provide support but the theme of the budget was that we needed to move away from one-off payments and to invest in our future. Each week we see plans announced to invest in the coming years and energy is no different.

I am a member of the infrastructure committee and we have had various groups in. We had Gas Networks Ireland and ESB Networks before us last week, and today we had the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. All of these bodies are there to be pushed and we have to ask them whether they are delivering on behalf of the State. The utilities tell us they have the money, the funding and the ability to deliver on behalf of the people. I have come from a committee meeting where I pushed the CRU on whether it was delivering on behalf of the people. We know it has increased its staff numbers from 113 to 180 in the past year or two. This has been done so it can put pressure on the utilities to ensure we can get the prices down.

We have not spoken enough about investment in individual houses and this is something we need to discuss.

The one sure fire way for people to reduce energy costs is by looking at their own houses, whether through the landlord or homeowner. That is key.

In my previous role, I was CFO for a solar company that grew, developed and built. You could see the importance of solar energy in the houses and the pay off. If you invested, you would have it paid off in six or seven years and after that, you would benefit into the future. We saw the effectiveness of TAMS on farms and the benefits for commercial companies. We need to keep pushing forward on that.

Previous speakers spoke about the need for infrastructure improvements and that is a key focus. The demand is there but roofs are still not covered in the way they need to be. We need to place a strong emphasis on that and continue to push that in the years ahead. Ultimately, energy is going to be the key demand for the rest of this century and into the future. The demands on energy will not come down and there will be key demands from a commercial energy perspective.

I asked the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, why prices were as they were. It said 30% of the prices are set but the other 70% are set by the wholesale. The excuse for this was that we are in the position of last supply. We have to take the price from the UK or wherever else we get it. Ultimately, that is not good enough. We need to deliver our own energy and invest in our own infrastructure, whether wind farms or solar, but we need to do it quickly.

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