Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 4, line 16, after “customer” ”, to insert “, subject to subsection (2),”.

I will speak to amendments Nos. 3 and 7. Amendment No. 2 obviously relates to amendment No. 3.

Amendment No. 3 refers to the whole issue of the non-principal private residence and where, in effect, an individual can be a final customer in two or more places. The Minister of State spoke earlier about this being a universal payment that goes to everybody. I do not propose to get into a philosophical argument about the concept of a person and a body. What is happening here, however, is that we will have a double payment to a considerable number of bodies or households by virtue of the fact that they have two or more homes.

As has been already articulated, that needs to change, particularly with regard to amendment No. 1. As has been said already, it is most disappointing that for all the months we have known now that some sort of intervention was going to have to take place during wintertime, no effort has been made by the Government to ensure a targeting of this payment to the principal private residence only and not to vacant or holiday homes. That is amendment No. 3.

Amendment No. 7 refers to the issue whereby the bill is effectively paid by somebody other than the occupants of the dwelling. We know of many instances whereby an arrangement is with the landlord. The landlord effectively pays the utility bill and the utility bills are incorporated into the rent paid by the tenant to the landlord or, indeed, an additional payment is made. Due to the nature of the payment, it will go to the person who holds the MPRN as opposed to the actual occupant. We ask that a change be made and that this amendment be incorporated into the Bill to ensure the occupants, that is, those incurring the costs of higher electricity this winter, will actually be in receipt of it. It is also really important that a dispute resolution is incorporated into the Bill so that when a dispute arises between a tenant and landlord, they can go to the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB.

We know that not all renters will receive the electricity credit, in the first instance, because they are not the payer of the bill, but also because they are in a licence agreement outside the terms of the RTB. Therefore, we need to see provisions to ensure this credit goes to the occupants and not just to the payers of the bill.