Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after “acknowledges that the Government:” and substitute the following: “- has failed to protect households and business from energy price rises adequately;

- has failed to adequately target the response to those who need it most and instead gave an energy rebate to owners of holiday homes, vacant properties and millionaires;

- has failed to ensure Travellers living on halting sites received the electricity rebate, with many families splitting the rebate with several other families and many more receiving nothing at all;

- is focused on electricity credits which are a short-term measure, has failed to address the root of the problem which is the coupling of gas and electricity prices, has rejected calls from Sinn Féin for the decoupling of electricity from gas prices in 2021 and wholesale market reform in 2020;

- needs to tackle war profiteering and introduce a windfall tax on energy companies;

- should develop a plan for energy demand reduction, that data centres are the single largest source of new demand for electricity and gas and that the plan cannot expect households to do heavy lifting;

- has failed to replace the energy poverty strategy which lapsed in 2019 and this failure makes addressing the present and looming energy price crisis significantly more difficult;

- has failed to deliver lower renewable energy prices through the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme 2 (RESS 2) and needs to establish a cross-Government high level taskforce to bring forward recommendations on how to lower the price of renewable energy;

- should establish a price cap on energy prices pegging them to pre-crisis levels; and calls on the Government to: - ensure measures are focused on those who need them most and to specifically outline how Travellers will not be excluded from any future electricity rebate schemes; engage constructively with Sinn Féin to exclude owners of holiday homes, vacant properties and millionaires from future rebate schemes and to outline how it proposes to support those dependent on medical equipment at home;

- denounce those corporations capitalising on Russia’s illegal and reprehensible war on Ukraine by profiteering from the resulting energy electricity price crisis;

- support Sinn Féin’s calls for decoupling of gas from electricity to deliver long-term, systemic price reductions;

- adequately resource the planning system and prescribed bodies so that they can expeditiously deal with infrastructure proposals to meet the climate crisis;

- support Sinn Féin’s Energy Poverty Strategy Bill;

- engage with the Sinn Féin alternative Budget which is fully costed and carefully manages the risks we face through the sustainable use of public money for the benefit of society."