A Budget that Abandoned Those in Energy Poverty

EnergyCloud Ireland are enormously disappointed that the Government has done nothing of note for those in energy poverty and that they continue to ignore the enormous amounts of surplus renewable energy that are being wasted every day in Ireland – an average of almost €1.7 million a day since they came to power.

Despite a commitment in the Programme for Government to use the waste to help those in energy poverty, nothing has been done to date and increasingly the Government and Minister Darragh O’Brien appear to have no vision, strategy or indeed imagination regarding this scandal.

And it is a scandal.  There are over 320,000 households in arrears on their electricity and according to the ESRI there are over 550,000 homes in energy poverty, which is almost 1.5 million people.  These people and families are facing into the winter with no realistic prospect of being able to heat their homes and will continue to face the stark choice of heating or eating.

The ESRI recently calculated that for €370m per annum we could eliminate energy poverty with targeted energy credits, something EnergyCloud Ireland and many others called for in advance of this budget.

Instead, the Government choose to focus on the cost of fuel, particularly for cars, trucks and tractors and are spending €100m a month, or €1.2 billion a year to keep these costs down and have effectively abandoned the 1.5 million people in energy poverty.

They have made their priorities clear.  In EnergyCloud Ireland we don’t believe this is politically sustainable and there is still time to do the right thing.  We call on the Government to introduce targeted energy credits to help the families in Ireland that are most in need.