Peadar Tóibín: Government accused of 'rip-off Ireland' on energy

Go raibh míle maith agat a Ceann Comhairle. The aim to PMB is designed to reduce the cost of living on families. It is designed to reduce the pressure on families across the country and the Minister is right in one extent. There's no doubt that the war in Ukraine, the war in Iran for example, have increased the cost of living for the families. But however this government is the main architect on the rip-off Ireland that is hurting this country at the moment and the government can list a range of different supports that it's giving to families. So child benefit, fuel supports for example. But most people would rather that you stop taking the money out of their pockets just to give it back to them in another support. That's the key issue here. You mentioned supports in terms of energy costs but the truth is most of Middle Ireland is considered too rich by the government for those supports but they're actually too poor still to pay for electricity and for fuel and as a result a half a million of those families are in energy arrears currently. Now we too want Ireland to decouple from fossil fuels. We want an Ireland to become self-sufficient in terms of energy. Energy independence is as important as fuel independence. Being dependent on the Middle East and on Russia is a major exposure for this country. But the way to do it is with a carrot rather than the stick. I'm the chair of the Meat on Track campaign. We have been campaigning since 1994 for a rail line. The earliest possible time that that will arrive is 2036. That's if nothing stops it and is likely to be another slip in relation to that. You know we want to see solar panels put on the roofs of this country. We want to see increased supports in terms of retrofitting in this country. Most families will give their right hand to get out of fossil fuels to have the public transport solutions that they need but the government won't provide it for them. Now this government has also spoken about renewables. The biggest break on renewables Minister is this government. We've been told for years that Ireland is going to become the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy, of wind energy. And yet in recent times we've become a net importer of electricity. We're going in the opposite direction to the rhetoric that the government is using in these terms. You know we've been told about offshore wind. Now forgive me Minister if I'm going to be cynical in relation to this. This government has had six offshore wind conferences since 2021. We have no offshore wind energy generation. There's not one turbine that's operating in this country. The government is brilliant and developing conferences and brochures and plans and policies. Sticking a turbine in the sea doesn't work though for the government does it? And that's the major problem in relation to all of this. In terms of renewable energy, the dysfunction of the system is holding back this. We have at the moment marginal pricing in energy development, in energy pricing in this country. That means the price of a unit of electricity is priced at the last unit that's added on to the system. Now if we keep adding on database data centers into this country we're never going to get out of the grip of gas. We're never going to run fast enough to get free of gas being the marginal units of electricity produced. And so the government's going in the opposite direction in terms of freeing this country from renewable energy. And you know the grid is creaking. The grid is grinding to a halt. Dispatch down, constraints, bottlenecks are all breaks to the addition of renewable energy. Every single turbine that's added has a diminishing return. We're paying 500 million euros a year to renewable energy providers to stop producing electricity. So the dysfunctional system in this country, the network costs and the stabilizing costs of the network are actually now more than the wholesale cost of producing electricity in Ireland. And that's adding on to everybody's bill in relation to this. I want to just talk in relation to Sinn Féin's contribution. Sinn Féin spent their time attacking opposition TDs in relation to this, letting the government off the hook. Let's be clear about this. ANGEL voted for the excise cuts that helped people over the last few months. Incredibly Sinn Féin was the only opposition party that voted against the excise cuts that are happening, that helps people over the last few months. Incredibly Sinn Féin are now arguing against those excise increases having voted against them being cut in the first place. And indeed in relation to Johnny Girk, Deputy Johnny Girk spoke about the fact and he said that AIN2 didn't speak on the finance bill. That is rubbish. Incredibly Deputy Girk, the stone thrower, himself didn't speak on that actual bill. We in AIN2 did. And just in relation to his speaking in the Dáil, in 2024 Deputy Girk had the lowest contribution in the Dáil. He spoke for one hour in a whole year in total. You know Deputy Girk is the father stone of Irish politics and he thinks being a TD is a remote job. But it's not. Those who turn up here make the decisions and not turning up, staying silent doesn't help the people of Meath. And it must be said also in relation to the government, the government were pulled kicking and screaming in relation to reducing these costs. And the reason they were pulled kicking and screaming is because of people power. It's because of ordinary people taking to the streets of this country and demanding help. Ordinary people whose businesses, whose families, whose jobs were literally falling around them, took to the streets in desperation. And this forced the government's hands. And if we're honest the major reason why this government is not increasing excise until September is because they are fearful that this government are actually, or that the protesters are going to come back on the streets in relation to this issue. And they do not want these protesters to put a bad look on the EU presidency. That is the biggest issue here. The frustrations I think that people have in relation to the level of tax on fuel at the moment is because the tax that they're paying is ending up in waste. That's a major issue. Most people actually don't mind paying taxes as long as they get value for money in terms of the services that they're producing. But just look at the level of government waste that's happening. Fifty million euros on a Eirean Road Aeron IT system that never worked. And when we asked the Taoiseach around it, the Taoiseach did not know the answers to it. You have 300 million euros spent on Metro North, not a shovel put in the ground. And when it was announced 20 years ago, the price of it was 2 billion euros. Now the price is edging towards 16 billion euros. A hundred electric buses that were bought that never moved an inch because somebody forgot to provide an electricity charger for those electric buses. The recent 127,000 euros for the HSC Currie bike shed, following on from the 336,000 doll bike shed. The 10 million euros is going to be spent on the Dublin City Council offices in Wood Quay that they plan to actually knock in three years time. And then you have the 2.4 billion euros in the National Children's Hospital, which is basically a monument to government waste at the moment. There is so many examples of the taxpayers money that is extracted for their pockets literally being incinerated by government waste over and over and again. And one of the most insidious levels of government waste that never gets looked at in this country is the overspends on an annual basis. The government has from 2021 been overspending 5 billion euros a year and they've become under pressure from IFAC in relation to it. Health accounts for 40% of that overspend and in one year capital infrastructure overruns so 1.6 billion euros in one year. So at the heart of the cost of living crisis in this country is the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, independent government tax gouging the people of Ireland and allowing for dysfunction to reign in terms of the infrastructure and the spend in this country. And you know Ireland has the highest electricity prices in the whole of Europe, the second highest now in the world. Incredibly the ESB made a profit of 3 billion euros just in the last four years. The ESB is a public company operating on the basis of government policy and that company is now looking to increase electricity prices today on people. Minister do you not see the problem here? How can you stand over a government company making 3 billion euros profit in four years and then in the middle of a cost of living crisis jacking up the cost of electricity? The fact that you're allowing that to happen is a major problem in that. 4.3 billion euros in fuel taxes last year. 1.2 billion euros in carbon tax last year. A tax that hardly existed five years ago. These are excruciating costs on families. They are hurting families. They are damaging families. They are damaging businesses. These high energy costs are bad for the economy. It's never discussed here that we have jobs going abroad, businesses closing because of the government is a high energy cost government. And until you get to grips with that and you realize that the levers that are in place and one of the levers is excise costs. Your government want to increase excise five times in a cost of living crisis over the next six months. Minister I'm asking you not to do that and to back the aim to PMB. Go raibh míle maith agat.