Fines Administration
Dail Éireann — 2023-05-04
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Rose Conway-Walsh (SF), Mayo

I commend my colleague, Deputy O'Rourke, not only on all the work he has put into this Private Members' motion but also on trying to combat energy poverty and deprivation over the past months. For more than five months now I have been highlighting the need to tax electricity companies for the obscene profits and to put that money towards reducing people's bills. Sinn Féin has been warning that since the electricity price system is broken, and it has been broken since November 2021 or even before that, households have seen record profits being made by energy companies while individuals struggle to pay enormous bills. The Government failed to act and even opposed reform at EU level. Instead, artificially high prices were left unchecked, allowing electricity companies to rake in profits. The EU eventually forced the Government into just tweaking the system but that did not even kick in until December 2022, while electricity companies lined their pockets for more than a year between the time when I called on the Government to act and when limited reforms were made.
The transfer of wealth from household to corporate profit hurts the elderly, workers and families and it has huge implications on people's lives. It also destroys local economies and negatively impacts the domestic economy. I questioned the Minister, Deputy Ryan, for months on this issue. Every time, he assured me that electricity profits would be taxed for 2022, and it is all on the record. On 28 February this year, the Taoiseach stated that there would a tax specifically on electricity generators. He said the tax raised on generators would be used to bring down prices for businesses and for households and that it would apply to profits made in 2022. If the Minister and the Taoiseach thought they could make false promises and wait for this problem to go away, then that really is politics at its most cynical.
People are really desperate. We have to separate the issue of fuel poverty and the impact it has from fuel deprivation, which is not counted at all. I refer to the number of people who are just going without because they are frightened to heat their homes and of the bills.
I refer to the amount of money held by these companies. I was overcharged €800. It was just taken out of my bank account. People are left without any money at the end of the month because the companies just come along and take what they deem is fit. Let me say that trying to get that money back is an onerous task, and I have personal experience of it. How much of the money held by these energy companies belongs to people who are really hard-pressed and in really difficult situations?

Darren O'Rourke (SF), Meath East

I thank everyone who contributed to the debate. I will come back on a number of points but it is clear from the debate and listening to the Government's response and reading its extensive and long countermotion, that it has not done enough to protect consumers, to rein in energy companies and to ensure fair practice within the energy sector here. That failure is not measured in statistics but in the human and social cost. We have it in terms of statistics, in that 377,000 people are living in energy poverty, according to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and there is a significant increase in arrears, particularly on the domestic gas side, with one in five domestic accounts now in arrears. Government points towards retrofitting and the measures it has taken. We know there are huge delays in people accessing retrofits, which is based on means in the first instance, and for those who do not have the means, the wait is incredibly long.
I challenge the Minister, Deputy Ryan, in his assertion that the windfall tax here will be the most aggressive in the European Union. It will not be. He asked us to point to other countries that are being more aggressive in terms of the individual thresholds within the measures. I can point to France, which is introducing a threshold of €100 per kilowatt-hour for wind, solar and nuclear. Ireland will introduce a threshold of €120. More importantly, we can point to other European countries which tackle the super excess profits that were made in the summer to autumn period of 2022. These profits are not being captured by this windfall tax. It is fair enough that the European regulation prescribes a certain formula but other countries have recognised the offensiveness of the profits made in that period. I refer to renewables companies in Ireland and the Government's own measure. Some €92 is a reasonable measure and additional profits are allowed on that but, in truth, last autumn, renewables companies here were getting multiples of €92. They were never expecting that. Profits were up to five times that. These were obscene profits which were never expected and were unfair.
The Minister of State used the word "unfair". The Government does not have a plan to tackle those profits and to reinvest them to protect vulnerable customers and people who are exposed. The Minister of State said the windfall tax would be ring-fenced to protect energy customers. In my understanding, that is not clear in relation to the temporary solidarity contribution. I think we will hear more on that. There has been a very significant reduction in the projected intake from the cap on market revenues. Due to delays by the Government, we failed to capture that period when wholesale gas prices were at their highest. There is an acknowledgement in the Government's response and in its countermotion of the need for additional resources for the CRU, which is welcome. It is also welcome that there is a plan in place.

Mark Ward (SF), Dublin Mid-West

I thank the Minister for his response. I will have to compare the information I received from the NTA with what he just said. In 2022, more than €2.85 million in fines were incurred by Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead - €1.642 million for Dublin Bus and €1.212 million for Go-Ahead. In 2021, their total €1.134 million in fines comprised €697,000 for Dublin Bus and €437,000 for Go-Ahead. Despite Go-Ahead only having 10% of bus routes in Dublin, it amassed 42.5% of fines in 2022 for failures in punctuality, reliability and service provision. In 2021, it accounted for 38% of fines. There was an increase of 152% in the total fines incurred by Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead between 2021 and 2022. The Minister has to admit that the situation is getting worse. Does he agree that the privatisation of our bus services has failed the consumer, and what is he going to do to buck this trend?

Eamon Ryan (GP), Dublin Bay South

The key problem has been in getting drivers at Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, Go-Ahead and other private operators. Every bus operator will tell the same story. To address this challenge and help close the gap, we engaged with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and secured agreement for 1,500 work permits for drivers who are needed across the country. Deputies will have seen Dublin Bus's major advertising campaign, which I understand has been successful. Private operators, Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are starting to get the staff they need. When speaking with Bus Éireann about this subject in recent weeks, it told me that it was starting to deploy more female drivers, which is helping it to close the staffing gap that caused the problem. Increasing permits and broadening the scope of advertising are the best ways of solving the problem.

Mark Ward (SF), Dublin Mid-West

I understand the issue with drivers, but there is also a difference in parity between drivers at Dublin Bus and drivers at Go-Ahead. The latter do not have contracts or conditions as good as the former and Go-Ahead is not as attractive a workplace as Dublin Bus. This is an issue with the private provider.
Go-Ahead operates the 76, 18, L51 and L52 routes in Clondalkin, Palmerstown and Lucan. The 76 route goes to Tallaght. Residents contact me regularly having missed appointments at Tallaght Hospital because their buses did not turn up. BusConnects is not fully connected. There are residents in Lucan who watch helplessly as bus after bus passes them by full. Residents in Newcastle and Rathcoole, which have two of the fastest growing populations in the State, feel abandoned because of the lack of services.
I am all for getting people out of cars and onto public transport, but the Government must provide adequate public transport to do this. What will the Minister say to those in my area who are missing school, work and hospital appointments?

Martin Browne (SF), Tipperary

When will the design stage finish? We were told recently that funding depends on the design stage. When did the issues with the suitability of the site first emerge? Will reports that back up the HSE's decision that the St. Patrick's site is too small be provided? Do they even exist? How much has been spent on the preliminary stages of St. Patrick's to date? How far along are negotiations on the greenfield site? Can any indication be given to us as to how close to the town the greenfield site is? Will the Minister of State give a commitment that other services such as the assessment unit and rehabilitation services are not lost in a couple of months' time?
That is why we have the system of regulation and fines and of holding those companies to account. Despite all these problems, particularly regarding the difficulty in getting drivers, what we have seen in the past year is public transport numbers increase very significantly, beyond what they were before Covid. That is unusual by international comparison; most other countries have not seen that. I believe that the combination of the 20% and 60% reductions in fares and some of the priority measures we are only starting to put in place is starting to see these bus services really increase and expand.
We have a lot of work to do. It is critical that we get the BusConnects project through planning and that we start delivering it and, in the interim, look at other measures in Dublin city centre and elsewhere where we can reallocate road space in order that the buses get through. The best way of solving this problem is not just by having as many drivers as we can get but also by making sure the buses are not stuck in traffic and that is what we are committing to do.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-05-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-05-04