I must now deal with a postponed division relating to the motion regarding high energy costs. Yesterday, on the question, "That the amendment to the motion be agreed to", a division was claimed and in accordance with Standing Order 80(2), that division must be taken now.
High Energy Costs: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]
The following motion was moved by Deputy Pearse Doherty on Tuesday, 7 March 2023:
That Dáil Éireann:
acknowledges that:
— unsustainably high energy bills continue to put workers and families under significant financial pressure;
— average gas and electricity bills have more than doubled over the past two years;
— recent figures from the Economic and Social Research Institute estimate that the share of households in energy poverty has increased to 29 per cent, a record high;
— the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Ireland launched a report this week which confirms the number of households unable to heat their homes more than doubled in 2022;
— the Government demonstrated zero foresight and a complete inability to plan for the very predictable increase to prices when they refused to reduce and cap electricity prices, having been called on by Sinn Féin to do so, despite many governments across Europe having the wisdom to do just that e.g., Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, and elsewhere; and
— the reluctance from the Government to introduce a windfall tax has served to protect the excessive profits of energy companies;
condemns:
— the fact that the most recent budget designed by then Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe TD, and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath TD, left workers and families with no certainty in respect of rising energy costs and bills;
— the decision of the Government last month to leave households with no meaningful relief or support from now on for their electricity bills, which remain unsustainably high;
— the position taken by the Government and Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamonn Ryan TD, in resisting fundamental reform of the European energy market in October 2021, and until as recently as September 2022, which served to further protect the excessive profits of energy companies and leave households at the mercy of the markets;
— the position taken by the Government and then Minister for Finance in opposing windfall taxes on the excess profits of energy companies until as recently as August 2022, which served to further protect the excessive profits of energy companies; and
— the rip-off of Irish consumers at the direction of the then Green Party Minister, Eamon Ryan TD, and his Fianna Fáil Government colleagues since 2009, via the large energy user rebalancing subvention, which favoured big business at the expense of domestic bill payers; and
calls on the Government to:
— provide financial relief and certainty to households by reducing electricity prices for households to their pre-Ukraine War levels of June 2021, and capping them at that level; and
— introduce an energy windfall tax on the excess profits of large energy companies without any further delay.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Dáil Eireann" and substitute the following:
"acknowledges the Government's response to the significant increases in energy prices for households and businesses due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine;
notes that:
— the Government introduced an unprecedented package of supports to protect consumers, including a €2.4 billion package of supports during 2022, and an additional package of once-off measures worth €2.5 billion was included in Budget 2023;
— in February, the Government announced a €1.2 billion package to help families, businesses, pensioners, carers and people with disabilities, including:
— families with children will receive a bonus Child Benefit payment of €100 per child in June;
— a once-off €100 increase in the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance in July;
— the Hot School Meals Programme will be extended to all Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) primary schools from September, benefiting 64,500 children;
— a second lump sum of €200 will be paid in April to people on the Working Family Payment, lone parents, low-income families, carers, those on disability payments, and pensioners among others;
— lower Value Added Tax (VAT) and excise rates will continue to apply on gas, electricity, petrol, diesel and marked gas oil until October;
— simplified application process for the Temporary Business Energy Support Scheme (TBESS) and the level of relief has been increased to 50 per cent of the cost of eligible energy bills; and
— the 9 per cent VAT rate for hospitality has been extended to August;
— in April and May 2022, 99 per cent of eligible domestic electricity accounts were credited with the first Electricity Costs Emergency Benefit payment of €176.22 (excl. VAT), with the total cost of this scheme just under €377 million, and this was of benefit to over 2.1 million households;
— under the second Electricity Costs Emergency Benefit Scheme, the first of three further €200 electricity credits was applied before Christmas, and the second payment was credited to bills in the January/February billing cycle, with the next payment of support being applied in the March/April billing cycle;
— as of 6th January, 2023, the number of domestic electricity accounts in receipt of their first (November/December) credit was 2.15 million, meaning 99.1 per cent of all eligible customers have now had the credit applied to their account;
— combined with the first Electricity Benefit Scheme, over 2.1 million households will have automatically received €800 of income support through their electricity bill at a total cost of €1.59 billion between Q2 2022 and Q2 2023;
— this is in addition to increased funding for supports such as the Fuel Allowance, reducing VAT on gas and electric bills, reduced excise duty on petrol and diesel and a total allocation of €267 million (of which €202 million is carbon tax receipts) to Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) residential and community schemes, including those targeting households at risk of poverty in 2022;
— in 2023, a total of €235 million will be spent on SEAI dedicated energy poverty schemes and Local Authority retrofits, and this funding will target 6,000 free upgrades under the Better Energy Warmer Homes Scheme, with a further 2,400 B2 retrofits of local authority homes next year;
— separate to the Fuel Allowance scheme, the Department of Social Protection pays an electricity or gas allowance under the Household Benefits Package, and a further €203 million will have been spent on the package in 2022, with over 483,000 households expected to have benefited from this;
— in 2022, 4,438 free upgrades were provided to homes at risk of energy poverty through SEAI's Warmer Homes and Warmth and Wellbeing Schemes;
— the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) ended its regulation of retail prices in the electricity market in 2011, and in the gas market in 2014, and given that prices are no longer regulated, they are set by all suppliers as entirely commercial and operational matters by them, with each company having its own different approach to pricing decisions over time, in accordance with factors such as their overall company strategic direction and developments in their cost base; and
— CRU has recently announced a further extension of the moratorium on disconnections for all bill-pay customers until the end of March 2023, and this is in addition to the strengthened consumer protection measures announced last September, which are now all in place, with these measures including a stipulation that suppliers must offer payment plans of up to 24 months;
recognises that:
— the new TBESS will support eligible companies, covering 40 per cent of the increase in their energy bills; and
— the TBESS scheme was due to expire on 28th February, however, as the impact of higher energy costs continue to be keenly felt by businesses across the country, the scheme was extended to 30th April, 2023, and the monthly limit on aid under the scheme was increased from €10,000 to €15,000 per qualifying business in relation to a trade or profession, subject to an overall cap of €45,000 in cases where a business is carried on from more than one location, with the enhanced limits applying for claim periods from 1st March, 2023;
further notes:
— the implementation of Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1854, which provides for a cap on market revenues in the electricity sector and a temporary solidarity contribution based on taxable profits in the fossil fuel production and refining sectors;
— on 22nd November, 2022, the Government announced the decision to introduce measures to address windfall gains in the energy sector through the implementation of Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1854, an emergency intervention to address high energy prices;
— the legislation to implement this decision is currently being developed, and a general scheme of this legislation is expected to be brought to Government in the coming weeks;
— the Government decided to set a cap of €120 per Megawatt Hour (MWh) for wind and solar, which goes further than the European Union regulation of €180 per MWh in order to fully capture windfall gains, whilst maintaining appropriate future investment signals, and excess revenues will be collected and used to support electricity consumers;
— the cap on market revenues will operate from December 2022 to June 2023 inclusive, as set out in the Council Regulation;
— the Government has decided to implement the Temporary Solidarity Contribution of Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1854 on fossil fuel production and refining companies that earn unexpected surplus profits in 2022 and 2023;
— the Government has also decided to implement the temporary solidarity contribution to apply to taxable profits which are more than 20 per cent above the baseline period from 2018 to 2021, which will be subject to a rate of 75 per cent, and losses from previous years will not be considered in the calculation of the taxable profits; and
— the proceeds to be collected from the implementation of Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1854 (cap on market revenues of non-gas electricity generators and the temporary solidarity contribution) will be highly dependent on the level of wholesale gas prices over the coming winter;
further acknowledges that:
— in April 2022, CRU wrote to Eirgrid and ESB Networks notifying them that it would unwind the Large Energy User (LEU) Rebalancing Subvention with effect from 1st October, 2022, the network tariffs had been rebalanced, since October 2010, in favour of LEUs following a 2009 Government decision;
— the 2009 Government decision was made to help safeguard jobs in some of Ireland's most-critical and export-orientated industries, at a time when unemployment was rising at a fast rate;
— the impact of the decision to unwind the rebalancing is estimated to reduce an average domestic customer's annual bill by €40; and
— following the introduction of Network Tariffs for the period October 2022 to September 2023, to include the unwinding of the LEU rebalancing, and the CRU decision to bring the Public Service Obligation levy to a negative value, domestic customers and small commercial customers are expected to see a small decrease in overall network costs when compared to last year; and
further recognises that the European Commission is carrying out a review of the electricity market and may propose adjustments following an impact assessment, and Ireland will engage with this programme of work with a view to, inter alia, maintaining the integrity of the all-island Single Electricity Market."
- (Minister of State at the Department of Justice)
Amendment put.
The Dáil divided by electronic means.
Because of the seriousness of the issue and the fact that the gap is less than ten, we are asking for a vote other than by electronic means.
As the Deputy is a teller and the difference in the vote is, as he has said, less than ten, the division will proceed.
Amendment again put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 69; Níl, 59; Staon, 0.
Tá
- Brophy, Colm.
- Browne, James.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Burke, Colm.
- Butler, Mary.
- Byrne, Thomas.
- Cahill, Jackie.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Cannon, Ciarán.
- Carroll MacNeill, Jennifer.
- Collins, Niall.
- Costello, Patrick.
- Coveney, Simon.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Creed, Michael.
- Crowe, Cathal.
- Devlin, Cormac.
- Dillon, Alan.
- Donnelly, Stephen.
- Duffy, Francis Noel.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Flaherty, Joe.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Foley, Norma.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Haughey, Seán.
- Higgins, Emer.
- Hourigan, Neasa.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Kehoe, Paul.
- Lahart, John.
- Lawless, James.
- Leddin, Brian.
- Madigan, Josepha.
- Martin, Micheál.
- Matthews, Steven.
- McAuliffe, Paul.
- McGuinness, John.
- McHugh, Joe.
- Moynihan, Aindrias.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Murnane O'Connor, Jennifer.
- Naughton, Hildegarde.
- Noonan, Malcolm.
- O'Brien, Darragh.
- O'Brien, Joe.
- O'Callaghan, Jim.
- O'Connor, James.
- O'Dea, Willie.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Donovan, Patrick.
- O'Dowd, Fergus.
- O'Gorman, Roderic.
- O'Sullivan, Christopher.
- O'Sullivan, Pádraig.
- Ó Cathasaigh, Marc.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Rabbitte, Anne.
- Richmond, Neale.
- Ring, Michael.
- Ryan, Eamon.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Smyth, Niamh.
- Smyth, Ossian.
- Stanton, David.
- Troy, Robert.
Níl
- Andrews, Chris.
- Bacik, Ivana.
- Barry, Mick.
- Boyd Barrett, Richard.
- Brady, John.
- Browne, Martin.
- Buckley, Pat.
- Cairns, Holly.
- Canney, Seán.
- Carthy, Matt.
- Clarke, Sorca.
- Collins, Joan.
- Collins, Michael.
- Connolly, Catherine.
- Conway-Walsh, Rose.
- Cronin, Réada.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Cullinane, David.
- Daly, Pa.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Donnelly, Paul.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Farrell, Mairéad.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Funchion, Kathleen.
- Gannon, Gary.
- Gould, Thomas.
- Guirke, Johnny.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Kelly, Alan.
- Kenny, Gino.
- Kenny, Martin.
- Kerrane, Claire.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- McGrath, Mattie.
- Mitchell, Denise.
- Munster, Imelda.
- Murphy, Catherine.
- Murphy, Verona.
- Nolan, Carol.
- O'Callaghan, Cian.
- O'Donoghue, Richard.
- O'Rourke, Darren.
- Ó Broin, Eoin.
- Ó Murchú, Ruairí.
- Ó Ríordáin, Aodhán.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- Quinlivan, Maurice.
- Ryan, Patricia.
- Shanahan, Matt.
- Sherlock, Sean.
- Shortall, Róisín.
- Smith, Duncan.
- Stanley, Brian.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
- Tully, Pauline.
- Ward, Mark.
- Whitmore, Jennifer.
Staon
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Cormac Devlin and Hildegarde Naughton; Níl, Deputies Denise Mitchell and Pádraig Mac Lochlainn.
Amendment declared carried.
Question put: “That the motion, as amended, be agreed to.”
The Dáil divided: Tá, 69; Níl, 59; Staon, 0.
Tá
- Brophy, Colm.
- Browne, James.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Burke, Colm.
- Butler, Mary.
- Byrne, Thomas.
- Cahill, Jackie.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Cannon, Ciarán.
- Carroll MacNeill, Jennifer.
- Collins, Niall.
- Costello, Patrick.
- Coveney, Simon.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Creed, Michael.
- Crowe, Cathal.
- Devlin, Cormac.
- Dillon, Alan.
- Donnelly, Stephen.
- Duffy, Francis Noel.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Flaherty, Joe.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Foley, Norma.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Haughey, Seán.
- Higgins, Emer.
- Hourigan, Neasa.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Kehoe, Paul.
- Lahart, John.
- Lawless, James.
- Leddin, Brian.
- Madigan, Josepha.
- Martin, Micheál.
- Matthews, Steven.
- McAuliffe, Paul.
- McGuinness, John.
- McHugh, Joe.
- Moynihan, Aindrias.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Murnane O'Connor, Jennifer.
- Naughton, Hildegarde.
- Noonan, Malcolm.
- O'Brien, Darragh.
- O'Brien, Joe.
- O'Callaghan, Jim.
- O'Connor, James.
- O'Dea, Willie.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Donovan, Patrick.
- O'Dowd, Fergus.
- O'Gorman, Roderic.
- O'Sullivan, Christopher.
- O'Sullivan, Pádraig.
- Ó Cathasaigh, Marc.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Rabbitte, Anne.
- Richmond, Neale.
- Ring, Michael.
- Ryan, Eamon.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Smyth, Niamh.
- Smyth, Ossian.
- Stanton, David.
- Troy, Robert.
Níl
- Andrews, Chris.
- Bacik, Ivana.
- Barry, Mick.
- Boyd Barrett, Richard.
- Brady, John.
- Browne, Martin.
- Buckley, Pat.
- Cairns, Holly.
- Canney, Seán.
- Carthy, Matt.
- Clarke, Sorca.
- Collins, Joan.
- Collins, Michael.
- Connolly, Catherine.
- Conway-Walsh, Rose.
- Cronin, Réada.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Cullinane, David.
- Daly, Pa.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Donnelly, Paul.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Farrell, Mairéad.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Funchion, Kathleen.
- Gannon, Gary.
- Gould, Thomas.
- Guirke, Johnny.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Kelly, Alan.
- Kenny, Gino.
- Kenny, Martin.
- Kerrane, Claire.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- McGrath, Mattie.
- Mitchell, Denise.
- Munster, Imelda.
- Murphy, Catherine.
- Murphy, Verona.
- Nolan, Carol.
- O'Callaghan, Cian.
- O'Donoghue, Richard.
- O'Rourke, Darren.
- Ó Broin, Eoin.
- Ó Murchú, Ruairí.
- Ó Ríordáin, Aodhán.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- Quinlivan, Maurice.
- Ryan, Patricia.
- Shanahan, Matt.
- Sherlock, Sean.
- Shortall, Róisín.
- Smith, Duncan.
- Stanley, Brian.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
- Tully, Pauline.
- Ward, Mark.
- Whitmore, Jennifer.
Staon
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Hildegarde Naughton and Cormac Devlin; Níl, Deputies Pádraig Mac Lochlainn and Denise Mitchell.
Question declared carried.