Dáil debates

Tuesday, 20 September 2022

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions

Energy Prices

9:30 pm

Photo of Holly CairnsHolly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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66. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the measures he is proposing to support SMEs struggling to meet rising energy bills. [45550/22]

Photo of Holly CairnsHolly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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Small and medium enterprise are facing into a bleak winter with rapidly increasing energy and operating costs. Shops, restaurants and many other businesses on main streets across west Cork and all of rural Ireland are looking at closing. We have seen this before and some of them might not reopen. That will have a detrimental impact on our towns and villages. How is the Minister proposing to support SMEs to meet these rising energy bills?

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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There is a wide range of grants, vouchers and training available to help SMEs to reduce their energy costs. Improving energy efficiency and reducing energy consumption helps to reduce emissions and ultimately improves competitiveness and saves on energy costs.

Supported by my Department and administered by the SEAI, current supports to SMEs include the excellence in energy efficiency design scheme. It is for all businesses, including SMEs, and helps in the planning of any major investment in energy efficiency. There is grant support of up to €1 million per project available. There is the support scheme for renewable heat. It supports the adoption of renewable heat by commercial, industrial, agricultural, district heating and public sector organisations. There is the support scheme for energy audits which offers €2,000 towards the cost of a professional, high-quality energy audit. Last of all, the SEAI's energy academy is an online resource that provides business with free access to high-quality energy training.

As part of the targeted milestones under the climate action plan and expedited as part of the national energy security framework, comprehensive reviews of all energy efficiency schemes have been carried out. Work between my Department and the SEAI continues with enhanced measures in streamlining processes and improved customer engagement already in place. The support scheme for energy audits, for example, has seen a significant increase in demand in recent months with €1 million in direct supports being provided to 500 SMEs. Furthermore, as part of the targeted measures in the decarbonisation of commercial building stock, a new, non-domestic solar photovoltaic support programme will be launched by the SEAI this month to add to the current ongoing development of a commercial retrofit support programme due to come on stream in 2023. The nationwide Reduce Your Use public information also gives practical advice on how people and businesses can save money by promoting and encouraging energy efficiency. It will focus on how we can reduce heating and electricity use in homes, workplaces and public sector buildings.

The Government is currently considering what additional supports could be made available to SMEs and other businesses in recognition of the significant increase in their energy costs this year. Decisions on this will be taken as part of budget 2023.

Photo of Holly CairnsHolly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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I appreciate all those schemes and am sure businesses will look into them but they are more long-term solutions. Many small businesses cannot go on at the moment. They need more immediate solutions given rising energy bills, operating costs, insurance, rates, food and the list goes on.The Minister knows shops, cafés and many other local enterprises are really fearful of the winter. Just as we are getting over the impact of the pandemic they face inflationary pressures, especially with energy prices.

I have so many examples I can give and think everybody does but I am going to go with examples from Bantry as I am aware it is a town the Minister is familiar with. Staff in Wharton's Fish and Chips were in the local newspaper showing their energy price hikes. The Stuffed Olive was on social media today with its bill and the owners of Organico, the health store and bakery, said in another newspaper their electricity bills went up 25% to 30% last year and have gone up 100% this year. To really emphasise where people are at, one of the proprietors summed it up by saying:

I don’t see how we can trade out of a situation where the cost of everything is increasing but the turnover is not. It’s going to close down businesses in the short-term.

What does the Minister say to her? I was speaking to a group who were saying the price of a pound of butter has gone up from €2.70 to €3.90.

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I accept those businesses, and so many others across the country, as well as households, are finding the bills that are coming are absolutely critical and critical to their operations. Government will engage in this six-month period ahead to look to providing further supports targeted at small or medium businesses because those businesses may not have the ability to pass on the costs. They are the ones that are richest in employment and we do not want to see them fall to this crisis which is not of their making, or the doing of anyone else in this country, but is a function of energy being used as a weapon of war. We must help protect our businesses in that regard. As I said in reply to various questions earlier, we are working with Government colleagues to consider what sorts of supports might be possible.

It will not cushion the full blow, there are no two ways about that, but we have to try to help provide as much protection as we can, which is what we will do.

9:40 pm

Photo of Holly CairnsHolly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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I just want to emphasise again that some of these businesses are literally weeks away from closing their doors without significant intervention from the Minister. Potentially thousands of people could end up on social welfare for the winter, not to mention the closure of businesses and confidence in our towns and villages. Even a temporary closure means less foot traffic, fewer people visiting the area and it has severe knock-on effects. The Minister knows one closed business in a small town or village has a really profound impact on the whole area. We need ambitious preventative measures now. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain in his answer how energy companies can be allowed to have record profits at this time. How is that permitted? Should they not be absorbing costs as small businesses seem to have to? We need an effective windfall tax that we can use to support SMEs.

Photo of Rose Conway-WalshRose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I want to make the Minister aware of a problem with the SEAI and businesses applying for grants. Businesses that have applied for grants are not getting a response quickly enough. In some cases they are not getting a response at all. I know one business that has been told it will be informed in November. These businesses have laid out a lot of money, up to €180,000 in some cases. Could the Minister intervene with the SEAI and ask them to speed up and streamline the process so that money gets back into these businesses as quickly as possible? They are depending on it for cash flow.

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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In response to Deputy Conway-Walsh, I will commit to that. It is important that everyone does treat this situation as what it is, an emergency situation, the SEAI included. It is important for it to accelerate its communications with companies looking for advice or grants to make sure we act quickly. I agree with Deputy Cairns. It is not a functioning market. There are super-normal profits being made. The best way for us to target those is to work in conjunction with European colleagues because the more uniform and united our approach to this is, the more legally robust and effective it is in countering the Russian Government and what it is doing. We will do that. It will not be an easy process but we are committed to trying to redirect some of those excess profits to Irish consumers and Irish businesses.