Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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102. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of people eliminated from getting the ESB credits over the past four years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44913/24]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Budget 2025 provided a €2.6 billion package of social protection measures to support households, individuals and businesses impacted by the increases in prices from recent high levels of inflation. It also introduced the Electricity Costs Emergency Benefit Scheme IV through which over 2.2 million households will receive two payments of €125 (inclusive of VAT) in the November/December 2024 and January/February 2025 billing cycles, at a total cost of €520 million (excluding VAT). The payments apply to domestic electricity accounts, including those with Pay-As-You-Go meters, which are subject to distribution use of system charges at the rate for urban domestic customers (DG1) or the rate for rural domestic customers (DG2).

Scheme III introduced a low usage threshold which prevented the payment from being applied to vacant houses. ESB Networks identified accounts (as identified by Meter Point Registration Numbers) which consumed less than 150 kilowatt hours of electricity for four consecutive quarters between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023 in respect of Scheme III, and between 1 September 2023 and 31 August 2024 in respect of Scheme IV.

Customers can appeal firstly to their supplier and later to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities if they feel that they should have received a payment.

The CRU reports regularly to me, as Minister, in relation to the operation of the Schemes. The final report will not be sent to me until all monies not used for the purposes of the Scheme III have been returned by suppliers and ESB Networks, however it is expected that over 90,000 low usage electricity accounts were identified as part of Scheme III, leading to an estimated saving of €40 million to the Exchequer. It is expected that approximately the same number of accounts will be identified as low-usage electricity accounts for the purposes of Scheme IV, and that this will lead to savings of approximately €22 million.