Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

That is why we have targeted and welfare payments but some people get missed, so we need some universal payments as well. We have the experience of that with child benefit. We have three universal payments, or three universal subsidies that are going through. The first is the direct payment of €600 is provided for in this Bill. The next one is the change in the PSO levy. The PSO levy used to be a tax on people's bills of €51 but this time it will be a credit of €89. That is equivalent to €140 per customer, which will directly help people. There is also the reduction in VAT from 13.5% to 9%. There is the €400 lump sum payment for fuel allowance recipients; the €200 lump sum payment for pensioners and people with a disability getting the living alone allowance; a €500 cost-of-living lump sum payment to all families getting working family payment; a double payment of child benefit to support all families with children; a €500 cost-of-living payment for people receiving carers support grant, which will be paid in November; a €500 lump sum cost-of-living disability support grant, which will be paid to all those receiving a long-term disability grant; a double welfare payment for those on long-term payments at Christmas; and a double payment in the autumn before that. Those are the targeted payments to reach people and they are going to have a significant effect but they will be kept under review.

Other than just paying people money, which obviously is not a long-term strategy, what are we doing to make sure we can reduce our energy use as a country while at the same time being able to heat our homes and provide ourselves with electricity in the future, so that we are not dependent on Russia or the Middle East to run our country? We need that independence and sovereignty. More than ever, people are coming to me to say they want wind farms built out faster, and not because of climate action but because they feel our country's independence is compromised by our dependence on Russia and the Middle East and we need to do this as fast as we can. That is the reason we are going to build out 7 GW of wind power and hydrogen, 5.5 GW of solar and 5.7 TW hours of anaerobic digestion. These are absolutely critical and they are needed more than ever. There is huge support for that from private enterprise which wants to invest in those areas and the general public supports that.