Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 have been ruled out of order.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 have been ruled out of order.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Amendment No. 5 has been ruled out of order.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Amendments Nos. 6 and 13 are related. Amendment No. 13 is consequential on amendment No. 6. Amendments Nos. 6 and 13 will be discussed together.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I move amendment No. 6:

In page 8, between lines 38 and 39, to insert the following: "(3) Electricity suppliers shall remove any arrears limits placed on prepay meters until the Minister directs otherwise.".

This is a straightforward amendment. I am asking electricity suppliers to remove any arrears limits placed on prepay meters until the Minister directs otherwise. This is proposed in the expectation that there will be a disconnection moratorium or ban over the winter period and deals with the issue as it arises each year in relation to prepay meters. People on prepay meters do not have the same buffer, if you like. If I am on a bill pay account and the disconnection moratorium is in place, I will not be disconnected and I have the comfort of knowing I can dip into arrears. Those on prepay meters do not have the same comfort. I am asking the Minister of State to consider the issue. Perhaps this Bill is not the place for such a matter but I want the Minister of State to consider the issue. Amendment No. 13 is the same.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputy. The purpose of amendments Nos. 6 and 13 is to insert text that will ultimately remove arrears limits on prepay meters. I have a prepay meter, so I am familiar with the system. I am interested to discuss further with the Deputy whatever we can do for people with prepay meters, although not necessarily what we can do for me.

As with the previous electricity credit schemes, prepayment customers will have the payment credited to their accounts and suppliers will engage with customers regarding arrangements for this. Everybody with a prepay meter received the credits in the past. Suppliers will notify customers of how to avail of the credit and when the payment is credited via a text message on the receipt.

In August this year, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, announced the reintroduction of specific customer protection measures for the coming winter to strengthen the existing protections that are currently in place. The strengthened consumer protection obligations on suppliers that come from CRU include an obligation to extend debt repayment periods of 18 months. There is also an obligation to reduce debt burdens on pay-as-you-go top-ups. A maximum of 10% of a single customer payment can be put against debt. For example, if you make a €20 top-up, only €2 will go towards debt repayment, if you have any debt. That is a change from the past when €5 of €20 went towards repaying debt.

There is to be better value for customers on financial hardship meters. The suppliers have been told to automatically switch people on hardship meters to the most economic tariff. The CRU has also mandated the suppliers to promote the vulnerable customer register and a moratorium on disconnections for registered vulnerable customers between 1 November 2024 and 31 March 2025, and for all households between 9 December 2024 and 17 January 2025.

These are obligations on suppliers that are mandated by the CRU. They are not in primary legislation, in contrast with the recommendation in this amendment, which proposes that we put this into the legislation. If we were to impose new requirements or conditions on people on prepay meters, we would do so through the existing working mechanism of the CRU. The CRU is answerable to the Oireachtas committee and I urge any members of that committee to speak directly to the CRU in that regard.

Electricity suppliers also have supports available so the energy credit can be provided to customers and supplier hardship funds can be accessed by pay-as-you-go customers in the same way as bill pay customers. Electricity suppliers are working with the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS, and with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Many people do not know that their suppliers have a hardship fund. If you contact your supplier and say that for some reason you cannot pay your bill, you can apply to obtain funds from the hardship fund. Customers will be offered €20 emergency credit once their balance reaches a certain point, which will provide more time to purchase a top-up. Additionally, customers will not be disconnected during credit-friendly times, which means they will not be disconnected between 5 p.m. and 10 a.m. on weekdays or over the weekend. Any emergency credit provided will be paid back from future top-ups.

Any customer who is in need of additional support can also apply for an additional needs payment provided by the Department of Social Protection, including customers on a pay-as-you-go meter who have a need for financial assistance to facilitate their continued energy supply. Every effort will be made to ensure that vulnerable individuals in financial distress who qualify receive an additional needs payment on the same day or as soon as possible where an issue relates to electricity and heating expenses. The officials in the Department of the environment engaged directly with officials from the Department of Social Protection to confirm that additional needs payments can be made for people who are finding difficulty paying their bills.

I stress that it is not possible to remove arrears limits from accounts completely because of the regulatory regime in the European Union. The regulation of retail prices in the electricity market ended in 2011 and in the gas market in 2014. Price setting by electricity suppliers is a commercial and operational matter for the companies concerned. For those reasons, I cannot accept these amendments.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I move amendment No. 7:

In page 8, after line 41, to insert the following: “Review by electricity supplier

6. (1) Where an electricity supplier refuses to make an electricity costs emergency benefit payment then the final customer may request the electricity supplier, on or before 30 June 2025 to review its refusal.

(2) The request under subsection (1) shall state the reasons why the person making the request wishes the refusal by the electricity supplier to be reviewed.

(3) The electricity supplier shall within 28 days of the request under subsection (1), take into account the reasons stated in the review request and shall—

(a) affirm the refusal to make the electricity costs emergency benefit payment, or

(b) on being satisfied that the final customer is or is eligible to be registered as a vulnerable customer or is the holder of a hardship meter account, make the electricity costs emergency benefit payment.

(4) An electricity supplier shall inform the final customer who made the request under subsection (1) of the electricity supplier’s decision under subsection (3) in writing within 28 days of the request for review.

(5) Where the electricity supplier makes a decision referred to in subsection (3)(a) it shall when informing the final customer concerned under subsection (4)—

(a) state the reasons for the refusal, and

(b) specify the period (being not less than 60 days from the date on which the final customer concerned is informed of the decision under subsection (4)) within which an objection, under section 9R(1)(e) of the Act of 1999, may be made to the Commission.

(6) Where, following a review under this section, an electricity supplier determines that an electricity costs emergency benefit payment will not be applied to a domestic electricity account, the final customer may make an objection, under section 9R(1)(e) of the Act of 1999, to the Commission.”.

The purpose of this amendment is to strengthen the protections for the customer by improving the review process where a customer is refused a payment. I and other Sinn Féin TDs, and others across the House, said on Second Stage that they had been contacted by low-income people, members of vulnerable households and people whose usage is low and who had been refused a payment. This amendment extends the period in which customers may ask for the decision to be reviewed. It speeds up the process to within 28 days and extends the period in which a customer may appeal a decision to 60 days, as opposed to the Government's 28 days.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Amendment No. 7 relates to section 6 of the Bill and a review by electricity suppliers for customers who did not receive payment under the scheme. I thank the Deputy for the amendment, which I propose to reject. Proposed amendments for Parts 3 and 4 seek to include a limit of 28 days for a supplier to consider a review request and 28 days to respond in writing to review requests. I recognise the merit of this amendment but it could cause unintended consequences for electricity suppliers and consumers by setting a limit of 28 days for a supplier review. This could prove difficult to implement and adhere to if issues arose. I understand that with previous schemes, there was a large increase in call volumes to energy supplier call centres in respect of the operation and roll-out of the credit, which caused problems such as increased waiting times for customers. That is not something to which I wish to add during the winter months. Permitting the review to be carried out "as soon as practicable", which is what the legislation states, after receipt of the request provides the flexibility required for dealing with requests. It is proposed to reject the amendments.

Under section 6(5)(b) proposed by the amendment, the Deputy seeks to provide an extended 60-day period for a review decision to be referred to the CRU. The Bill has provided 28 days for this referral. The scheme will end on 31 August 2025. Suppliers will return unallocated funds to ESB Networks, which will, in turn, forward the moneys back to my Department and then the Exchequer. It is preferable that these moneys are returned to the Exchequer as soon as practicable.

As a Deputy and a Minister of State, I have been contacted by members of the public about electricity credits. I did not, however, receive any complaints from members of the public who were unable to access their credits because their window to appeal timed out. In all the cases I dealt with, the individual customers managed to get their credits. Out of 2 million customers in Ireland, fewer than 100 ended up being referred to the CRU under appeal. The vast majority of people who contacted their suppliers were sent their electricity credits as a result. I thank the Deputy for submitting this amendment.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Amendment No. 8 is out of order.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Amendment No. 9 is out of order.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I move amendment No. 10:

In page 14, between lines 21 and 22, to insert the following: “Reporting

14. (1) The Minister shall, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on the application of the No. III Scheme and the submeter support scheme to address high electricity costs.

(2) The Minister shall, within 12 months of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on the application of the No. III Scheme and the submeter support scheme compared to emergency measures adopted in other EU states to address high electricity costs.”.

The Minister of State agreed to this amendment in the previous iteration of the Bill. Between the Bills Office and me there is a typo, in that the reference in both instances should be to "the No. IV Scheme", as opposed to "the No. III Scheme", but the Minister of State will get the point in both cases. It is a conversation we had before. Again, the idea is to determine how repeated one-off payments are working out, and how we as a State have done overall in responding to the high cost of electricity. The proposal is a good one. It is something we should be doing as a matter of course anyway. I hope the Minister of State is able to accept the amendment.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Can the Minister of State accept the amendment?

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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No, but I thank Deputy O'Rourke for submitting the amendment last year, when I did accept it. The amendment calls for a report, and reporting has been going on since last year. It will continue this year on an administrative basis. I am not accepting the amendment because I would then not be able to bring the Bill to the Seanad tomorrow, but I appreciate that it is good to have transparency and reporting. We will continue with the level of reporting Deputy O'Rourke asked for last year, which we legislated for. We will continue to do that on an administrative basis this year.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 are out of order. Amendment No. 13 cannot be moved. It was already discussed with amendment No. 6.