Ryan defends Government approach to tackling energy poverty

The right approach to tackle energy poverty is “providing cash payments”, Minister for Environment Eamon Ryan has insisted in a Dáil row with Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty over the energy crisis.

Mr Doherty said the Taoiseach had promised two weeks ago that nobody would be disconnected this winter including pay-as-you-go customers.

During sharp exchanges at leaders’ questions, the Sinn Fein finance spokesman said that in the first half of the year, 700 households were disconnected from electricity and 300 from gas. But he said instead of acting on this, the Government was telling people to go to their community welfare officer and had also “outsourced” the problem to under-pressure charities.

He said one Minister had said on TV that people should go to the St Vincent de Paul.

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“It beggars belief that a Government Minister would put further pressure” on charities during such difficult times.

Mr Doherty called for a “real plan” to protect people and said there should be an immediate 24/7 ban on disconnections.

“This is your portfolio,” he told Mr Ryan. “This is your responsibility. All households need to be protected from energy disconnections this winter.”

But Mr Ryan disagreed that the measures being used amounted to charity. “What we’re talking about here is community, Government, NGOs and others working together. It is not charity. It’s appropriate that we do use those tools that do work.”

He told the Donegal TD that if “easy, simplistic solutions worked that would be great, but that’s not the real world”.

He said the Sinn Féin’s proposal for a loan to those on pre-pay meters where the emergency credit is extended was not the right approach because the experts say it would “put people back in further debt”.

Mr Ryan stressed: “I believe the right approach in tackling poverty and tackling energy poverty, at this particular time is providing cash payments.

“That is the best way to help people, through a whole range of measures,” including all the interventions made through the Budget.

Mr Ryan has been in discussions with energy companies and said he would be coming forward with more measures in the next few weeks. It was a complex situation without simplistic solutions, he added.

But Mr Doherty said there should be a ban for the 450,000 people on prepaid meters. “You’ve decided to abandon them.”

He said disconnections are happening. “You talk about the real world. It is happening. People are self-disconnecting.”

He said there should be fairness around the ban. He said a household on bill pay schemes will have a guarantee that they will not be disconnected but 450,000 households do not have that guarantee.

The Minister needed to “do the right thing, give action to the commitment that was given by the Taoiseach introduce a ban on disconnections”. That should be done immediately and not in December and “introduce it for all households. Give them certainty that the heat will stay on that the lights will stay on over this winter period.”

The Minister said that pre-pay meters helped many the ability to reduce their bills and on average they reduced usage by about 8 per cent.

“The critical thing is people have the money so they don’t have to disconnect and if that is through (budgeting service) Mabs or Vincent de Paul there is nothing wrong with that,” he said. “We will continue to look at what are the rules and regulations that will help them through a particularly difficult period.”