Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

As we all know, more than 900,000 households are facing into fuel poverty this winter. Fuel poverty has been a permanent feature of this country through good times and now through bad. The choices facing this State, particularly when the public finances are in such a remarkably healthy situation, raise very serious questions about the extent to which the State is willing to go the extra mile to help those households in fuel poverty. It is not even that they have a minor difficulty in paying their bills; this is actual poverty. We very much believe the State has been found wanting in that regard. People will of course welcome the three instalments of €183, but when that is set against the €2,000 increase in average energy bills over the past 18 months and the projection that that will further increase by €1,200, that support is really in the ha'penny place.

I have heard the Minister of State talk about the increase in the fuel allowance threshold. That is all very welcome but there are thousands of households in this country that should be entitled to the fuel allowance but are not because of their circumstances. Perhaps there is somebody else in the home, or they are marginally over the increased threshold, or they are not in receipt of the social welfare payment that would make them eligible.

While we will support this Bill, we believe serious changes need to be introduced to it. I refer in particular to situations where tenants are in rented accommodation where the landlord pays the utility bill. We need to ensure it is the tenants who benefit, that they do not lose out and can share in that payment from the State towards those who are paying the utility bill. The landlord is effectively just passing on that utility bill to the tenants, but if they are the person with the MPRN, then they will only pocket the payment. The second issue is that not all renters are covered by this Bill. Licences are the main form of tenant agreement in co-living spaces or for short-term leases. We need all renters to be included in this Bill.

The other key issue, which has been referred to, is the outrageous fact that some households may benefit on the double from this payment. This needs to be targeted at households that actually need the payment. Those with holiday homes or other homes that happen to have a live MPRN should not be benefiting. There has been insufficient effort on the part of the Government to try to control that.

While we need to get people through this winter, and I accept we will have to have once-off measures, my main interest is the permanent fix. The Government has acknowledged that €28 billion needs to be spent this decade to retrofit 500,000 homes to a B2 standard. Yet the Government is only stumping up €8 billion of that. The budget only provided for an additional 10,000 houses to be retrofitted next year on top of what was retrofitted this year. The ambition to get to that 500,000 target is far off track. The money being put into retrofitting is far from sufficient and the waiting times at the moment are simply disgraceful. It is taking 26 months to access retrofitting under the better energy, warmer homes scheme. We are talking today about the once-off measures to get people through the winter, but we also need to hear from the Minister of State about the permanent fix. We know from many of the energy experts, and we can see it ourselves in the energy sector, that prices are not going to retreat to where they were at the start of this year or last year. They are going to remain at elevated levels.That will have a significant impact on households, particularly considering the difference between heating a two- or three-bedroom apartment with a building energy rating of F or G and a similar unit with a rating of B2. The difference can be up to €3,500 per year. My figures are from before the energy crisis. They are obviously a lot worse now and may get worse again in the future. Therefore, we need to hear from the Government about the permanent fix.