Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Before giving my substantive contribution, I must address some of the commentary here today. I accept that people have differences of opinion on how to tackle climate change but I will not accept people dismissing the fact that others have done their research on this. I have worked in the area of environmental issues and climate change for years and my research on the carbon tax, which is backed up by a meta-analysis carried out in 2021 and empirical ex postevidence from January and February 2021, shows that the reductions in carbon are minimal, at between 0% and 2% per year, and that it is highly damaging to the public buy-in to the transition. I also wish to point out that in 2018 it was exposed by an eminent academic, who has exposed all the work ExxonMobil has done in damaging the arguments about climate change and undermining climate change evidence, that ExxonMobil pledged $1 million to support a carbon tax advocacy group and the head of that group was a former PR executive adviser for ExxonMobil. We can disagree on this, but I will not have people saying that this is something that has just been jumped on as a populist measure. This is a position that has been researched and which I will stand over.

We are talking today about energy poverty and people facing hardship. It is worth pointing out that over a year ago, not long after I was elected, I was raising this issue with the Minister. I conducted a study on energy poverty. The responses received then were harrowing, even before all the hikes in energy prices. People were huddling in one room and choosing between heating their homes or putting food on the table. The dogs in the street knew back then that they were struggling. However, whenever I ask Ministers about the level of energy poverty they are unable to give me an answer because we do not have a clear definition of what constitutes energy poverty. It was clear from budget 2022 that the Government did not have a handle on the scale of the problem because it did not go far enough in that budget to protect people. Then there was this announcement last week to make up for that, with the Government referring to if it had known then what it knows now. The truth is, however, that many of us were highlighting this a year ago and saying there were massive issues with energy poverty.

In our alternative budget, Sinn Féin proposed enhanced payments in social welfare and fuel allowance. Deputy Kerrane put forward the idea of a discretionary fund. The Tánaiste said he would consider it, but the Government failed to heed any of that. If we do not know what the definition of energy poverty is and if we do not measure it, we cannot address it. I have spoken numerous times, like a broken record, about the energy poverty strategy. That strategy lapsed in 2019 and there is no new energy poverty strategy. We were promised a review of the implementation of the previous strategy last year, but last week, in a response to a Commencement matter, the Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Ossian Smyth, promised that we will have it in the first quarter of next year. We have also been promised Central Statistics Office, CSO, metric indicators around making sure that the retrofitting programme can be held up for its social impact assessment. We are also told that the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, is working on the metrics but, again, there is no timeframe for that.

It is unfortunate that Senator Pauline O'Reilly was not at the meeting today of the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action when the energy regulator, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, was there for three hours to answer questions from those of us who are concerned about what the regulator is doing to help people with their energy costs. It was deeply concerning to hear the regulator take a very hands-off approach to what it can do. It refuses to intervene directly in the market and to regulate when 70% of what is in a customer's bill are costs that are directly regulated by the CRU. I was dumbfounded to hear the regulator say that the markets will fix this and that it is just an international problem of costs when we know that the wholesale costs across the EU are lower than they are here.

The regulator refused a cap on affordable tariffs, as happens in Britain. The pay-as-you-go tariff will not be capped and the default tariff will not be capped. The regulator ruled it out, saying it did not have the evidence to show that it would work. The regulator refused to curtail network and wholesale costs. Some 38.1% of customers' bills will go on network costs and the regulator did not question that. It was the same with its challenge of EirGrid and the ESB. The regulator has spent 25% of its budget on private consultants, yet it has never challenged the ESB. It does not have the resources to challenge the likes of the ESB and ask if all the costs are necessary. The CRU was asked about public service obligation, PSO, reform. Up the road in the North the PSO is designed in a way whereby households pay less PSO to businesses. The regulator ruled that out as an option as well.

We are here to discuss the €100 rebate measure, which forms part of the EU toolbox to address the energy price crisis. People say it is not targeted and that it is too little, too late. I have concerns. We looked at what is suggested in the EU toolbox. It says that social payments should be targeted. The EU also suggested using the revenue from the EU emissions trading scheme to fund it. Again, however, Ireland does not do that properly. According to the European Court of Auditors and the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Government does not ring-fence the funds from the emissions trading scheme for climate measures. We talk about the carbon tax but how about ring-fencing the money from the emissions trading scheme that is coming in every year for climate measures, as every other EU country does? That would make energy-intensive companies pay for the transition instead of households.

I made a freedom of information, FOI, request regarding the €100 rebate and it appears that funds to fund this €100 or €200 rebate are coming from energy poverty alleviation programmes, retrofitting and rural broadband. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform said in the FOI that it was concerned that helping people in this way would set a precedent and that the Minister should avoid going into details about where the funding was coming from because it was underspend from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. The EU also suggested applying a reduced rate of tax on a temporary basis. Again, the FOI showed that this was not considered. It was ruled out of the question. The EU suggested taking measures to help all energy consumers and to direct support for a defined minimum consumption per household or inhabitant. While the Government's plan supports all energy consumers, it is blind to the minimum consumption necessary. Everyone gets €100 regardless of whether one lives in a G-rated rental or an A1-rated new build. The EU suggests stepping up investments in renewable energy, renovations and energy efficiency, but the Government decided to do the opposite and take the money from that fund to fund the €100 measure.

I am running out of time so I will not get to all the issues I wished to raise. People at home might have been hoping that the energy regulator would do its job and regulate the energy companies when they are making profits. I believe the profit for the ESB last year was €74 million. If we were banking on the energy regulator to stand up for ordinary people and households, it certainly made it clear today that this would not be the case.