I welcome those from Mercy College, Woodford, County Galway, who are in the Public Gallery. I want to express my condolences to the families of those whose lives were so brutally taken during the horrific gun attack on Bondi Beach on Sunday. Our thoughts are with those families, the injured, the wider Jewish community and, of course, with the people of Australia and Sydney. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamnacha. Households hammered by relentless hikes in energy and electricity prices are in disbelief today. They have awoken to the news that their bills are set to increase even further. Electricity network charges are being hiked, forcing hard-pressed households to carry the can for upgrading the grid. Customers here, as the Taoiseach knows, are squeezed to breaking point just to light and heat their homes. They pay among the highest electricity prices in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of working households cannot pay their energy bills because of these non-stop hikes. Price-gouging energy companies are making bumper profits to the tune of millions of euro, if not billions. In the past couple of months, we have seen energy companies, one after the other, jack up their prices so that a million households now face higher bills this Christmas. They fleece people at every turn and the Government has not laid a glove on them. Worse than that, it has actually enabled this behaviour. At the same time, the Government cancelled energy credits in a budget of €9.4 billion, in which, astonishingly, it managed to leave working people worse off. It has also increased the price of petrol, diesel and home heating oil. Now people face another increase to their already unaffordable electricity bills. The upgrading and modernisation of our national grid is incredibly important. It has to be a priority. God knows real progress is badly needed after decades of terrible planning and chronic underinvestment by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. It simply beggars belief, however, that ordinary households will be hit with another increase to improve the grid while energy companies laugh all the way to the bank. Energy companies are making millions of euro, eye-watering profits. It is incredible, therefore, that struggling customers will be asked to fork out again. If the Government really cared about fairness, if the Taoiseach's Government cared at all, it would put the onus for funding this upgrade where it belongs: on the mega-rich energy companies and other large energy consumers. It would not go to ordinary people again. The Government should not be adding a single red cent to these rip-off bills, especially during such tough times. It should be about getting costs down, reducing electricity prices and making life affordable. Tá an Rialtas ag roghnú billí leictreachais daoine a mhéadú ag an am is measa, nuair atá teaghlaigh faoi bhrú uafásach cheana féin le billí ollmhóra le híoc acu. Ní féidir leis seo dul ar aghaidh. The Government's failure to tackle the energy rip-off leaves people in desperate situations. Not alone is the Government not doing anything to help working people; it also stands by as these bills will be increased again. Does the Taoiseach think this is a fair way to treat people already fleeced by non-stop electricity price hikes? What is his response to today's news? Will he intervene as Head of Government to put a stop to this increase?
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We have had price hike after price hike. As I said earlier, not a glove has been placed on any of these gouging companies. Some 1 million households will face higher bills this Christmas. Over 300,000 households are in energy arrears. A so-called affordability task force has done absolutely bugger all to achieve affordability for those households and struggling families. We have a Government that is prepared to sit back and let households suffer. That is what I hear. Nobody is contesting the need for investment in the grid but the Government needs to accept the reality of what is happening in households right across the land as we approach Christmas. The reality is that working households, and let me emphasise that I am talking about working households, cannot meet their bills. Today, they wake to the news that in fact those bills will be increased again. I ask the Taoiseach not to offload this to some task force. What will he do to ensure that those bills can be met, that they are reduced and that families can have an affordable life again?
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Oh Jesus, do not start.
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No, I want working people to be able to pay their bills.
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No, I do not.
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This is disgraceful.
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You are a disgrace.
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Can you make the energy companies-----
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Jesus, the indifference is stunning.
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Answer her question.
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Property is not fiscally sustainable.
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I am supporting my colleague and her very reasonable question.
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