Lack of urgency on energy prices, Sinn Fein says

The National Energy Affordability Taskforce is a “talking shop” with “no urgency”, Sinn Fein has said.

The Taskforce was established last June but has only met three times in eight months.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald told the Dail on Tuesday that the record “really takes the biscuit”.

She said 70,000 additional households were behind on their electricity bills when compared to this time last year.

“The overall number in electricity arrears now stands at a staggering and record 303,465 households.

“We have not seen the worst of it yet because the figures for December and January are still to be reported.

“This is a shocking situation and yet there is not a word from the Taoiseach, only silence.

Ms McDonald added: “There is no urgency, no determination, and no real care for what people are going through.

“Families are hammered by incredible, unbearable daily pressure, and the Government’s so-called taskforce, its big solution, is sleeping on the job.”

In particular, Ms McDonald criticised the removal of energy credits in the October budget, which had been a feature of cost-of-living packages in preceding years.

She called on Government to reinstate energy credits “which households so desperately need” and asked for energy companies to be told “to stop ripping people off”.

She further called on Government to give the energy regulator powers “it needs to get energy costs down and to bring this rip-off to a stop”.

However, Taoiseach Micheal Martin said that a universal energy credit would help “the vast majority of people who are not in arrears”.

He said he did not accept Ms McDonald’s “overall presentation”, as he blamed energy price increases on the post-pandemic period and the war in Ukraine.

He said inflation had come down from 10% after Russia invaded Ukraine, to 2.6% now.

“I still disagree with the Deputy that we should retain universal energy credits.

“I find it difficult to comprehend that a party that comes from where it claims it comes from would argue that millionaires and people on very sizeable incomes should get energy credits.

“Particularly when the Deputy argues that we should retain the totality of the cost-of-living payments we provided in the worst of times, during and post-Covid, and the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at three billion euro, on top of the expenditure we have already increased by about 8%.

“If we took the Deputy’s budget proposals, they would add 2.5% to the cost of living at a time when she complains about the cost of living.”

He added:  “Once-off cost-of-living measures are not fiscally sustainable for the next number of years.”