An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-03
============================================================

Sarah O'Reilly (AON), Agricultural Panel

People right across the country are worried about paying more at the pump because of global instability that will inevitably push up fuel prices and this is on top of already struggling to pay for basic necessities like energy bills and groceries. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, has estimated that around 29% of households are living in energy poverty. Some 320,000 households, or one in seven homes across Ireland, are in arrears with their electricity bills. The Government cut energy credits from budget 2026 with no plan in place to support families who they knew would struggle to afford paying their energy bills. The Tánaiste has said that help is on its way but surely the Government was aware of the impact that cutting energy credits could have on households.
The programme for Government states that the Government will explore ways to reduce energy poverty by diverting surplus renewable energy to these households. This would be life-changing for many families who simply cannot afford to heat their homes. We had representatives from EnergyCloud in the social protection committee and they are doing brilliant work in this space. You could feel their frustration.
EnergyCloud has an excellent product, the know-how, the costings and the technology but it is still getting no buy-in from the Government for this. It has a product that costs cents to manufacture and will divert surplus energy into homes at risk of energy poverty. It is already in some social houses. We have a really simple idea that is cost effective and a solution that is ready to go. It needs to be rolled out countrywide. I would like to get feedback from the Department of the environment and climate action and the Minister on this initiative and on whether they are actively trying to implement it.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-03