Dáil hears elderly woman used money for husband's headstone to pay electricity bill
'When her family called around to visit last night, they found her sitting in the dark, terrified of switching on the lights, worried sick about what the next bill might be.'
An elderly woman in County Laois has had to use money set aside for her recently deceased husband’s headstone to pay an electricity bill.
Sinn Féin TD Sorca Clarke told the Dáil the woman who was living alone after her husband passed away last year, received an electricity bill for €760, which she cannot afford.
Ms Clarke said the woman was refused support in the form of an additional needs payment due to the sum of money she had set aside from her pension which was to be used for a headstone for her husband’s grave.
Ms Clarke said the woman has had to spend the money on the electricity bill instead of the headstone “because of that refusal for help”.
“Her husband's anniversary is approaching and she is distraught that she will not have that headstone for his grave on time.
“Yet, when her family called around to visit last night, they found her sitting in the dark, terrified of switching on the lights, worried sick about what the next bill might be and when these nightmare costs are going to end,” she said.
Ms Clarke noted another woman in Dublin who is 90 years of age and whose gas bills have gone from €200 to €600.
“She simply does not have the money for this. Unsurprisingly, she has fallen into arrears. After questioning the bills, she was threatened with disconnection. She is absolutely beside herself,” she said.
Ms Clarke said Sinn Féin brought forward a plan to cut energy costs and cap them “which would have made a real difference to hard-pressed households but the Government blocked the plan and failed to offer up any solutions of its own".
Justice Minister Simon Harris said price caps had not worked in the UK.
"Unfortunately for you, Liz Truss became the British prime minister, albeit for a very brief period of time.
"And during that time, I don't know whether she stole (Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald's) homework or Mary Lou stole her homework, but you ended up with a scenario where they went ahead and did what you advised and they brought in price caps.
"And in bringing in the price caps she managed to tank the pound."
“The only certainty Sinn Féin's plan would provide is the certainty that the woman in Laois and the woman in Dublin and everybody else watching this programme would have to put their hands in their pockets and hand their money over to the energy companies,” he said.
Mr Harris said the Economic and Social Research Institute said the introduction of price caps would disproportionetely benefit high-income earners and allow energy providers to "jack up prices" in the knowledge it would be covered by Government.
Defending the Government’s response to the cost of living crisis, Mr Harris said he hopes legislation on the windfall tax on energy companies will pass before the summer recess, “with the co-operation and support of the Deputy and her party”.
“We will introduce it this year and we will say to these companies, in a very practical way, that if they are going to continue to profiteer on the back of Irish people, then we are going to tax them for it,” he said.
