Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)

I thank my colleague, Deputy O'Rourke, for bringing forward the motion. It is an important motion that strikes at the heart of the cost-of-living crisis faced by ordinary people. The cost-of-living crisis could more accurately be described as a rip-off crisis. People in Ireland pay two thirds higher than the EU average for electricity, with a typical Irish household paying nearly €700 more per year for it. It is just not electricity where we are getting ripped off. Just last week, it was reported that Ireland is the second-most expensive country in the European Union. Prices in Ireland are an incredible 42% higher than the EU average. Let us think about that. Goods and services here are nearly twice as expensive as the EU average. Are workers' wages 42% higher? No, they very much are not. That is where ordinary people in this country are getting hit.

This gap is only getting wider. Ireland is becoming more expensive to live in all the time. In 2016, prices here were 29% above the EU average but the gap has increased every year since. One of the biggest reasons for the elevated prices paid by consumers, as we see with electricity, is weak regulatory enforcement by the Government. Essentially, people are getting ripped off because the Government is allowing it. It affects businesses as well, including small, family and local businesses, some of which are getting destroyed by the cost of electricity, insurance and goods from big conglomerates and producers. The Government has created an energy market in which profit maximisation trumps affordable pricing for ordinary people. It is this Government that is causing Ireland's rip-off prices on electricity and in other areas too. While people welcomed the electricity credit, with this measure the Government is only temporarily paying people off to compensate for its failures to deliver low and affordable electricity.

If delivering low and affordable electricity is done, there would be no need for a credit. The difficult thing to do is to take that decision to tackle the costs to ensure proper regulatory enforcement, but the Government will not do that because it is a difficult decision that means tackling its friends in big business. The Government does not want to put their noses out of joint or tackle their price gouging. It does not want to deliver for the ordinary worker or ordinary families.

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