Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has accused the government of “sitting back” and allowing more than a million households to take “a hit of further hikes in gas and electricity prices.”
A number of gas and electricity providers have raised prices for consumers, using the Iran War and “market pressures” as an excuse.
McDonald, TD for Dublin Central, said that the price ranges for electricity and gas range anywhere from 8% to 11%, and will pile on pressure to families who are already struggling.
McDonald warned “these hikes will kick in as households deal with rising rents, increasing food prices, and expensive back-to-school costs. And that’s before we mention the sky-high cost of car insurance and childcare.”
She added that Ireland already pays the highest electricity prices in the European Union, with over 300,000 households in arrears on their electricity payments.
“On average, we pay almost €500 more a year than our European neighbours. We already have record numbers unable to pay their energy bills – with more than half a million household accounts in arrears,” she told the Dáil this week.
McDonald took aim at the government, saying that they are “sitting back” while prices rise.
“You should choose to step up. To have the backs of households faced with these big energy price hikes. To take action to rein in the energy companies. You should provide people with support – here and now. That means intervening directly and providing the energy credits households need,” she said.
Energy credits, a feature of previous Budgets in the 2021 and 2022 Budgets as cost-of-living measures, were absent from last year’s Budget.
Analysts note that the Green Party influence over the Budget process was a factor in the likes of the no-fault eviction ban, energy credits, and increases to social welfare payments.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin acknowledged that “families have been under pressure in respect of the cost-of-living issue.”
“The latter has been exacerbated by significant events in recent years, not least the exit from Covid, the supply chain inflationary crisis and the spiral that followed that, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the energy that followed that, the tariff situation relating to the United States and the war in the Middle East between the United States and Iran, which led to the largest ever supply shock in terms of fuel and to consequential increases in fuel prices.”
Martin dismissed McDonald’s claims that the government have done “nothing,” pointing to the recent package of €755 million in April to help ease fuel pressures (but critics argue it was used as a blunt tool to end the fuel protests).
Martin noted “we took 32 cent off the price of diesel, 27 cent off petrol and 7.4% off marked gas oil. We also deferred the carbon tax increases until October.”
He said “these are substantial measures; we have now taken a decision to extend those and to reduce them on a graduated basis. The cost of that will be about €255 million, so we are now looking at an intervention, above and beyond what was in the budget, of close to €1 billion. That is not doing nothing.”