Government must learn energy cost 'lessons' ahead of winter, committee to hear

The Society of St Vincent de Paul will say: “People are forced to make strategic choices between essentials, food through the week, or energy through the week. No one should be faced with that dilemma." File photo

Energy costs will “continue to be unaffordable” for many throughout the summer and the Government must enter this coming winter “having learnt lessons” from the last year, an Oireachtas committee will hear on Tuesday.

The Oireachtas Environment Committee will hear from a number of advocates this morning on the impact of energy poverty on thousands of families across the country, and measures that could be taken to support them going forward.

It comes as new figures from the Central Statistics Office have shown that wholesale electricity prices fell by 40% in the last 12 months to the end of April. Between March and April, alone, prices fell 13.5%.

These lower wholesale prices have consistently led to calls for energy companies to drop their prices, after a staggering, sustained slew of hikes in recent years. This is particularly acute given households will have already received the last €200 electricity credit from the Government, with the next bills through the letterbox coming without that support.

At today’s committee, representatives from the Society of St Vincent de Paul will say their members are currently seeing the hardship caused by ongoing high energy prices.

“Last year we saw a 40% increase in requests for assistance related to energy, and in the first quarter of this year we have seen energy requests increase by approximately a further 50% against the same period last year,” they will say. “This is part of a wider trend of our overall requests rising by approximately 20%.” 

SVP will say that many households are facing multiple bills that they cannot clear before the next one comes through, and the situation is “extreme” for prepay customers who continue to face self-disconnection when they have no more money to put into the meter.

People are forced to make strategic choices between essentials, food through the week, or energy through the week. No one should be faced with that dilemma. 

"This takes its toll on people's emotional, mental and physical health and members see that distress when they are assisting people.” 

The supports they are calling for include a government-subsidised social tariff, to provide a discounted energy tariff for households on means-tested social welfare payments, as well as a new consumer advocacy agency and a new service of community energy advisors to provide one-on-one support for people around the country.

“A key point we would like to make today is that while we have left winter behind, we are still facing an energy price, and energy poverty, crisis: it is now that we need to be stepping in with people’s bills and addressing the risks facing prepay customers,” SVP will say.

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Social Justice Ireland will also address the committee today and emphasise the impact of high energy prices on a wide variety of at-risk households, as well as the need to create energy-efficient homes to help support people out of energy poverty.

“While Government has introduced a number of packages of measures, including budgetary, to mitigate the impact of rising costs, it fails to address the core issue of income adequacy, as many have been one-off in nature, and others are insufficient to address the challenges that households on low incomes currently face,” it will say.