Energy crisis: Cash supports should be linked to income, Sinn Féin says

Sinn Féin in government would fund a €1.6 billion subvention to energy companies between now and February in order to ensure that household electricity and gas bills returned to the levels they were at in the summer of 2021.

The party proposed that people earning €21,000 annually would get an energy credit of €500, with the sum being tapered off for those with incomes up to a cut-off point of €70,000.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the party would impose a windfall tax on energy companies as part of a €3.8 billion cost-of-living package, which it will table when the Dáil returns on Wednesday.

Speaking as her TDs and senators gathered for a special parliamentary party meeting at the CHQ Building in Dublin, Ms McDonald “every worker is affected by this inflationary spike” but lower-income households were being hit hardest.

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She accepted that the subvention to energy companies was a very big one and said it would apply until the end of February, covering the winter period where household energy costs are highest.

“I have to tell you quite honestly we believe it is necessary. We believe the package that we will present represents a cost-of-living package of €3.8 billion,” she said. “That is a lot of money but we more than fit to carry that burden given.”

Ms McDonald said there was a budgetary surplus of €4 billion and also €2 billion that was put away as a Covid-19 contingency fund.

Asked about Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s comments that if the Government commits to €2 billion in spending, Sinn Féin will always come out with a promise to spend €3 billion or more, the Sinn Féin leader defended her party’s position. She said it had chosen its own plan to help people struggling with rising costs and it highlighted the need for the Government to do more.

Other aspects of the party’s cost-of-living package and budgetary approach would, she said, see Sinn Féin propose lower rates for the bottom two bands of the universal social charge (USC), as well as an increase in the threshold before the higher rate was reached. That, she said, would help lower-income families.

She also said the party would argue for a double payment of child benefit in October to meet the cost of inflation.

In her subsequent speech to her parliamentary party, the Dublin North Central TD said Sinn Féin would argue for excise rates on petrol and diesel to be reduced further, as well as for the removal of excise duty on home heating oil.

Modular housing

Ms McDonald was asked several times at the press conference if Sinn Féin was opposed to modular housing as a solution to the large challenges posed by the arrival of 50,000 Ukrainian refugees into the country.

The party’s TD for Kildare South, Patricia Ryan, wrote letters to 500 residents in Newbridge warning of potential “significant conflict” between locals and Ukrainian refugees if they moved into modular housing there.

Asked if Sinn Féin supported modular housing as a solution, Ms McDonald said: “I think modular housing and housing up to the right specification and in the right locations and with the right services, of course is the answer.”

She said there was a need for “far greater planning” and “constructive conversations” around modular housing.

Asked how long that would take when there was a crisis in finding emergency accommodation for refugees, she replied: “We are well aware of that. And what I’m saying to you is that you can opt for emergency answers in the first instance but you need to have a wider and a deeper plan.

“And certainly I don’t believe that Ukrainian families who come here wants to be in a position where they’re either rooming in someone else’s home, or they are thoughtlessly accommodated in very, very small modular houses, I mean tiny, with very little services, even connectivity to schools [without] a school bus in many cases ... I don’t think that’s fair.”