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

I thank Senators for tabling these amendments and I take them in the spirit in which they are intended. Each of these amendments proposes to amend the Bill to include wording around non-vacant and non-holiday homes. The scheme being established is going to use the MPRN to identify all domestic electricity accounts to ensure that payments are made directly and automatically without means testing, application or approval. The first scheme successfully credited 2.1 million domestic accounts, or 99.3% of all eligible accounts, including pay-as-you-go meters, through April, May and June of this year. That was done automatically at a cost of about €377 million.

As to holiday homes, using the electricity bill infrastructure it is not possible to determine whether individual premises are used for purposes other than as a principal private residence. The scheme does not have additional eligibility criteria so, for example, it is not means tested, as the application of such criteria would override the automatic nature of the current scheme. It would be cumbersome for customers, by requiring formal application and it would delay the automatic crediting of customer accounts, which is due to begin on 1 November 2022. While I understand that there are over 60,000 holiday homes that were reported as unoccupied in the preliminary CSO census results for 2022, of course it is not possible to know their usage or occupancy on an ongoing basis or to identify them in the MPRN system. Obviously, the census data is confidential and private and we cannot link back to that. However, as per the mechanisms of the scheme, once these properties possess an active MPRN, a credit will be applied and while this cannot be avoided, it is offset by the fact that 2.2 million domestic accounts will receive the credit automatically.

There is a balance or a trade off here. When we have a universal measure, it reaches everybody, including those who do not need it. When we have a targeted measure, it only reaches a particular subset of people, although in a larger and more substantial way, but there are people who really deserve it that get missed by the targeted payment. People then advocate for those people. That is the reason we are applying a set of universal measures and a set of targeted measures. We have three universal measures and eight targeted measures totalling €2.5 billion.

I recognise that there is a real attempt here, using energy usage over two months and over 12 months, to try to identify what constitutes a vacant property. I also know that statistically, this was the approach taken by the census. They were trying to find some kind of proxy or approximate measurement of which homes are vacant. I can see that some effort and thought has gone into that in these amendments but, unfortunately, it would create classes of people who do not qualify but who ought to qualify. The proposal is to set consumption limits as an identifier of eligibility. However, the amendment does not take into account individual circumstances. If, for example, a person is hospitalised over a period of time, he or she will have lower levels of consumption and could be excluded. Let us take the example of a new local authority tenant who moves into a home. Typically those properties take a long time to be refurbished. They can be void for a period of time while a deep renovation is carried out, following a long-term tenancy. Again, the property will have a very long period of non-use of energy and the tenant may not qualify as a result. Another example would be people who move home. If they move into a house that was vacant when it was for sale, they will not qualify for the energy credit.

There is a mechanism provided for in the amendment whereby a person can apply for the credit and take a dispute resolution case explaining why he or she ought to get it but that moves away from the automatic nature of the scheme which ensures that everybody gets a payment during November and December. Unfortunately, it undermines the idea that everybody will get something, while those who are being targeted on the basis of their welfare status or low income will get extra payments.

Amendment No. 6 provides that the Minister will establish a dispute resolution mechanism. I will not be accepting that proposal. The CRU already provides a free and independent dispute resolution service. This service is available to all utility customers that have an unresolved dispute with their provider and on this basis, I propose to reject these amendments.