Pearse Doherty: Restore energy credits, introduce emergency budget

Go raibh maith agat i asgainn Comhairle, you'll indulge me in welcoming na poéisi as sgáil nácht na ggáiseal from the Kingdom in Kerry. You're very welcome here to the Dáil today to witness proceedings, a guest of Pat Daly. Aitheann Comhairle, Tánaiste, ta daoine ag lórt mále a míon a nes agus go bhfuil seo de graig, go bhfuil seo de coirt a chudu agus ta chudu do dhíochar ús, ta seo de rair na phéidear lof agat bilí uích, eabhrinnaí, teaillí, pensionnaí, a geannu gach rodd cearta go fóil, ta seo titim tí ar. Agus a nísir maith i nío dearr bhfuil na níos a ráidh, an rodd a bhfí ar alas uachainn, go bhfuil an dhíor chaim seo go donna, go ta seo go fóill uíchinn, agus ta seo gair i níos maith seo. Go bhfuil seo as le tríor phangéid a teaillí, ta deachracht ach u agus bilí ffáinniúch a dhíol, agus an uírinne, na ta seo bhfuil bhfuil níos maith seo. Máir léiríon a'n tuaire seo o traoibh seo an y ródh na craids buas a ffáinniúch a ffóil, ann, nair a bhfí cosas leitreachat níos íos le, agus an nís ta seo bhfuil bhfuil bhfuil níos maith seo. Tánaiste, people have been crying out for months that they need help. They've been telling you that they can't pay their bills. Workers, families, pensioners doing everything right and they're still falling behind. And now this morning the ESRI confirms exactly what they have been saying. The crisis is deep, it's widespread and it's getting worse. But the real picture is even starker. Because that report reflects a time when energy credits were still in place, when electricity costs were lower. It's gotten much, much worse since. And your response to this? Well, your response was to withdraw energy credits. At the very moment that families needed the help most, you took the supports away. You made a bad situation worse. And that is not just wrong, it is indefensible. And this report doesn't stand alone. On Tuesday we learned that 317,000 households can't pay their electricity bill. People already falling behind now push further and further. Yesterday, another report, the CSO, told us that grocery prices are rising again. Piling pressure on already stretched households. Bills going up while supports are going down. And this crisis is so severe that families with two incomes can no longer afford to pay their bills. That's not marginal. This is a social emergency. Report after report, warning after warning, all telling you the same thing. The crisis is worsening and you are standing idly by. So I am going to ask you directly today, Tanaiste, how many warnings are you going to ignore before you act? Because this, Tanaiste, isn't about statistics on a piece of paper. This is about people's lives. It is about people living in cold homes. It is about parents skipping meals so that their children can eat. It is about older people afraid to turn on the heat in their homes. It's about people rationing heat, cutting back on essentials. It's about living with that constant anxiety about the next bill that's going to come through the door. And all the while, the state runs multi-billion euro surpluses. So there is no excuse whatsoever for inaction. The state has the money. But the question is, why have people never felt under so much pressure? Instead, you've allowed this crisis to deepen. That's what's happening here. Forcing families into impossible choices every single week. Heat or food. Electricity or rent. Keeping the lights on or falling into arrears. And this isn't inevitable. It's not. This is a political choice and it's your choice. That's why this is happening. Sinn Féin has set out a very clear alternative. An emergency budget to cut costs and support households right now. That is what is needed. That includes reinstating the energy credits that you withdrew. Direct immediate relief for families under severe pressures just to get by. Because, Tanaiste, you might not understand this. But see out there in the real world. People can't wait for next year's budget. People can't wait for you to get your act together in October. They need the support now. It is now that the bills are rising. It is now that the pressure is mounting and they need the support now. So my question to you is, how many warnings do you need? How many stories do you have to hear before you finally act and introduce an emergency budget and restore energy credits for households who cannot wait any longer? Well, thanks very much, Lasko and Corle. Of course, the government hasn't waited to act. That's why this government has brought in either the largest or the second largest package of supports across the European Union. That happened on the floor of this House only around two weeks ago. And I'm pleased to say it's having an impact. While diesel prices and petrol prices are still too high, people will have seen them at the pump lower than they were before the intervention. People see that with their own eyes because we took the decision to reduce the excise on diesel to even go beyond what was allowed under the energy tax directive to reduce it further. We took the decision to reduce petrol too. We took the decision to reduce green diesel. And yesterday, we announced the two very significant schemes of support for crucial sectors of the economy for farmers, for fishers, for farm contractors, for whole ears. And I certainly heard, and I'm sure you must have heard too, but I certainly heard words of welcome for those schemes. I heard them on the radio. I heard them on the television. Farmers, their representative body saying, this will help, this will make a difference. And that scheme, the one for farmers and farm contractors, will open as soon as next Tuesday. And the Deputy is right to highlight the issue of inflation because, yes, the war on Iran, the bombing of Iran, has caused inflation to go up. But it's also true to say that the economic analysis of the package that we brought forward has shown that it's having an effect on suppressing the rise of inflation. The Chief Economist in the Department of Finance believes that the package we brought in won't just benefit farmers and fishers and whole ears, won't just benefit people at the pumps, but will also suppress the rise of inflation by around 0.6% a month. That will benefit people in terms of what they otherwise would have experienced in the supermarket, in the local shop, as they go about their cost of living. Now, of course, this ESRI report didn't fall from the sky. It's something that the government commissioned. We ourselves commissioned this report because it's always good to have an evidence base. And, of course, the report says many things. It also notes that those at risk of energy poverty, those at risk of not being able to warm their home, has nearly halved between 2013 and 2024. In 2013, there were 25% of households in Ireland in the depths of a financial crisis struggling to heat their homes. And that number is still too high. At the end of 2024, it was down to 14%. We also found in the report that the fuel allowance was a very effective scheme. And Minister Killeary and his predecessors, and this government and the last government, haven't sat idly by since the end of 2024. In fact, in the two budgets since then, we've taken measures to increase the fuel allowance further and to expand the fuel allowance to more people. So you've now seen the fuel allowance be extended to more older people. You've seen the fuel allowance be extended to 50,000 more low-income families. You've seen the amount of fuel allowance be increased as well. Now, obviously, the war has had a real impact. And that's why, in addition to that, we took the decision to further supplement the fuel allowance by €77 million, extending for another month, benefiting 470,000 people. The report also talked about the need to help people warm their homes, to help people make sure their homes are more energy efficient. And I'm pleased to say that we also are taking measures there with record funding this year to help upgrade people's homes, make them more energy efficient, make them warmer, so people's homes are cheaper to heat. So we get away from this over-reliance on fossil fuels. And we've seen 186% of an increase, 186% of an increase in applications for those grants as a result of decisions made by Minister O'Brien and government colleagues. That's more grants for windows, for doors, for heat pumps, all up hugely on last year. And in fact, since 2019, over a quarter of a million home energy upgrades have been delivered thanks to government funding of over €1.7 billion. So this is not a question, Lasky and Cora, of anybody having to wait for anything. This is a government acting, acting beyond that of any other European member state to try and make real progress. And you may like to suggest and put forward a narrative. But people out there know. They know we've taken measures to reduce diesel. They know we've taken measures to reduce petrol. They know we've taken measures to help key sectors of the Irish economy. They know we've taken measures to suppress inflation. And they know we stand ready to take more in the months ahead. Deputy Daugherty. Tony, with respect, you do not understand the scale of this crisis that is in people's homes. Like, seriously, do you really believe that what you've just said here makes a blind bit of difference to any one of the 317,000 families? Wow. No, actually. Just listen to this. Does that make a blind bit of difference to the 317,000 families who cannot pay their electricity bills now? You're talking about extending the fuel allowance that ends today. You're talking about stuff that's already happened. They still can't pay their electricity bills, Simon. That's the problem. And you know what you're telling them. You're telling them, wait till next year's budget. The bills keep on rolling in. The prices keep on going up. The pressure is mounting. And you will not support Irish citizens at this point in time with the supports that they need. We need an emergency budget. You need to restore the energy credits that you withdrew from those families last year's budget. You made a massive, massive mistake and you have plunged families into crisis. 317,000. Just picture that. Visualise that. How many children, how many adults, families who can't pay their electricity bills, Simon. So what you have said does not cut it for them. Because you do not understand the scale of the crisis. That's your problem. It's quite extraordinary that after 16 years as the opposition spokesperson at finance you still believe that a cost of living package of three quarters of a billion euro isn't helping. It doesn't help. Of course it helps. It helps people reduce the cost of diesel. It helps people reduce petrol. It extended the fuel allowance. It's making people's homes warmer. You want to ignore all of that because if this narrative, tell the Irish people the government is refusing to act, the Irish people aren't stupid. They know we're acting. You're trying to convince them of a false narrative. But the Irish people know something else too. You don't want an emergency budget. You want one a week. You came in here about two weeks ago and you asked me to bring forward a package of measures that would have cost a billion. Then last week you had an RDS. You said, God, we'd better come up with another plan. If you continually come in here every week and say, another billion, another billion, another three billion, and not even bother to target the measures, under your plan you'd get an energy credit. You don't need an energy credit. You haven't even done the level of detailed policy work. Every week with you, it's another emergency budget. You want to spend a surplus that if you were in power wouldn't even exist. Wouldn't even exist. We're acting. You're making it up. You're making it up as you go. You're making it up as you go. You're making it up as you go. And it's more than just a budget.