Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I encourage Senator Garvey to hang on, because I have some comments about the PSO levy as well as on something the Government could do to bring down the cost of energy. This is not my first time raising energy poverty in this House. I published a report earlier this year that detailed real lived experiences of people who are living in energy poverty. The latest figures suggest that 2,800 excess deaths a year are due to cold weather. Other people are sacrificing other essential items just to keep the lights on and their houses warm.

My first question for the Minister of State is on the energy poverty strategy, which lapsed in 2019. We have yet to see a new strategy, so there does not seem to be any urgency in this Government about addressing energy poverty. While the rising cost of energy this year is happening on a global scale, that does not mean that we can take a laissez-faireapproach to how we address energy poverty. We must have a strategy that identifies which households are most in need of action, and on how we will address those households to ensure we can lift them out of energy poverty.

We know from a Department of Public Expenditure and Reform report in 2020 that we do not have adequate data about energy poverty. A report in 2015 that was commissioned by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications stated that energy poverty in Ireland could be anything from 25% of households, and up to 50% of households in the north west of the country because of one-off housing that relies on solid fuels. However, the report in 2020 - five years after the 2015 report - shows that we still do not have adequate data to identify those households in energy poverty. Yet, the Government is dead set on increasing the carbon tax. It is going to introduce a nationwide smoky fuel ban, which of course we need. However, if we do not know which households will be directly impacted by those rising costs and by that smoky fuel ban, then how are we going to help those households?

Of course, any increases in the budget in terms of social welfare transfers are to be welcomed. However, we also need direct State intervention to identify the households and to reduce the cost of energy. It is regrettable that the Government and the CRU have told people to shop around when they did not take account of how hard it is for people to do that. Some people do not have the capacity to shop around. They might not have a credit rating that allows them to do that. Those households that struggle to make ends meet are advised to go on pay-as-you-go metering, which has a higher tariff, so they are being punished for not having adequate income to cover their bills.

One of the things the Government should be looking at is increasing the doors and window fund to make it easier for local authorities to identity those households. That would be a short-term stopgap to make those homes warmer for people and it would reduce their energy costs.The other aspect concerns the PSO levy. It exists to subsidise renewable energy but it is calculated on the basis of peak demand usage. That allows data centres off the hook when it comes to paying their fair share of the PSO levy. Data centres do not have high peak demands. Instead, they have a steady demand during the day. Households are therefore subsidising the PSO levy on behalf of data centres. The Government could do something to address this issue directly by adjusting the PSO levy and making it apply to demand usage and not peak demand usage. That could be done overnight. Those are two measures that could be taken. I also ask the Minister of State to advise me regarding when we are going to see indicators from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, to allow for the proper identification of those households most in need in respect of energy poverty.