The Government believes sufficient supports have been put in place to prevent anyone having their energy supply cut off over the winter, according to Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath.
He insisted that the Coalition had acted in a very fair and generous way in Budget 2023 as Sinn Féin social protection spokeswoman Claire Kerrane called for more supports.
Mr McGrath acknowledged that a lot of people are worried because inflation is at a 40-year high along and people face “a raft of utility bill increases” at the onset of winter. He said the €1.2 billion social protection package announced includes “very fair and generous” supports such as increases in core weekly welfare payments, three €200 electricity credits over the winter and a series of other payments.
Calling for more supports, Ms Kerrane said 715 consumers had their energy supplies disconnected in the first half of the year, which was before many of the price hikes kicked in. She pointed out that 125,000 households are in arrears “and that figure is only going to get worse”.
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Renewing her party’s call for an immediate ban on disconnections for all customers until the end of March, she said prepay electricity customers should be protected from disconnection for the duration of winter.
The Roscommon-Galway TD said “we have not seen any real plan from the Government” to protect the 346,000 households that use prepaid electricity meters, and that once the €20 emergency credit runs out “prepay customers are disconnected by default”.
She said the plan to waive fees for vulnerable prepay customers to allow them move to bill pay “is only for medically vulnerable customers and not for those in financial hardship”.
Fee waiving
However, the Mr McGrath said that “the one-month pause in disconnections generally for non-payment, has been extended to three months”. He said work was progressing on waiving the fee for pay-as-you-go customers to move to bill pay.
Mr McGrath said the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) has directed that all prepay consumers “must be placed on the cheapest tariff available from their supplier from December 1st”.
Ms Kerrane complained that the Minister spent mot of his response to her question “reiterating what was in the budget”. She added that “the vast majority of people” do not receive the fuel allowance and that it can take up to two months for a decision on emergency social welfare support payments.
Mr McGrath said: “There should be no reason to do with financial hardship that anyone loses power supply this winter ... We certainly don’t want to see any vulnerable household lose electricity supply this winter. We do not believe that should happen and we believe sufficient supports have been put in place to prevent it happening.”
