Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-11
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Pearse Doherty (SF), Donegal

The Minister and his Government withdrew energy credits in last year's budget. That is why we are seeing what is happening now. We have record numbers of families across this State who cannot pay their electricity or gas bills. That is on the Government. We are paying the highest electricity costs in Europe and the electricity companies have just told us they are going to jack up prices again. In less than three weeks 1.2 million families across the State are going to face near double-digit increases in electricity and gas prices? What is the Minister's response? It is that we should wait to see what the Government does in next year's budget. That is not good enough. The Government needs to call in the energy companies and it needs to tell them that increase after increase is simply not on. The Government also needs to make direct intervention. It needs to bring forward energy credits right now. It has to understand the scale of the problem.
There are people coming to me who never had a problem paying their electricity bill or gas bill, but because of the relentless price increases they now cannot pay their bills.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-11