Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Since this is the last Order of Business, I thank everybody for their work, especially those who keep these Houses running behind the scenes. This morning, I wish to raise an issue relating to energy poverty. This is something that came to light through the National Traveller Money Advice and Budgetary Service, MABS. Its 2019 study on energy poverty indicated that 77% of Travellers living in mobile homes were in energy poverty. It also found that their weekly energy use was €108, which is 26% of their income. That is well above the 10% threshold for energy poverty. The Government's electricity rebate was supposed to soften the blow of the large increases in electricity bills. However, despite the extraordinary levels of energy poverty in the community, a large cohort of Travellers did not benefit from the rebate according to the National Traveller MABS. In the case of families living on halting sites, the local authority has an account with the electricity company. The account was not considered a domestic account and therefore there was no rebate payment made at all. In many situations, the families do not receive electricity bills directly because families make payments for electricity directly to local authorities as part of their rent. In some cases, where they did the electricity credit, it was divided between the number of bays on-site, meaning that they only got about €7 per family because the mobile homes share the parking bays.

Again, despite being in energy poverty, many families were done out of the full rebate while millionaires and holiday home owners benefitted, despite our attempt to exclude them in amendments. To add insult to injury, the Select Committee on Environment and Climate Action heard yesterday that €20 million of the €400 million that was set aside for the electricity credit scheme went unspent. When the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan was asked how many Traveller families did not receive the payment, he was unable to give an answer. The Government and local authorities need to get to the bottom of this quickly and make sure the Traveller families get the previous payment and that if the scheme is repeated - and there are kites being flown that it will be repeated in the early budget - that the same mistakes are not made again. I echo the real concerns by the National Traveller MABS on this. This issue has received very little coverage in the media.