I will be supporting this Bill. No one has mentioned the elephant in the room. This Government signed off on allowing networks to charge up to €120 per megawatt hour. It costs €50 per megawatt hour to produce electricity but the networks are allowed to charge up to €120. People in some areas have gas and alternatives. They can swap between different groups to get cheaper rates. In rural areas, we are lucky to have ESB at times. People in rural areas only have one choice. If something is not broken, they will not fix it. They will not swap between different networks because they do not have the opportunity to do so. The Government brought out so-called targeted funding but it is taking it back through VAT increases. It is giving with one hand and taking back with the other. The Government then came out with a solar panel scheme. I am all for solar panels but the Government brought out a grant that only allows you to put up to 6 kW of solar panels on your roof. Even if a roof could take up to 20 kW, the Government says people can only put up 6 kW. Why is that? It is because the infrastructure is not there to take the power fluctuations. The Government does not want you to be able to power your own house for free and send back electricity to the grid because the infrastructure is not there. The Government limited the number of solar panels and the amount of grants that would allow people to get cheaper electricity. Some people wait for the bills to come in at the end of the month and do not know what price different things are going to come in at. They take every chance they can to turn off lights or heating to save as much as they can, even if it means doing without. Everything the Government has done has only benefited the electricity suppliers. They are making profits off these exponential increases. Along with Eamon Ryan and the Green Party, the current Government parties were part of the Government that stopped the designated maritime area plans, DMAPs, that would have allowed us to generate offshore wind power in Ireland coming out because they wanted it to go on the east coast. They would not allow it for the likes of Foynes and other areas on the west coast, where the highest wind speeds are. For five years, they held back the DMAPs to stop us developing offshore generation and are now talking about being environmentally friendly. We could have produced power offshore. We would have needed no wind turbines inland, where they have health implications. That is what they did. They held this up for six years and are now part of another Government, which is giving the people a pittance back and telling them they are looking after them. They are giving them nothing.

Sentiment score: 0.16