Government to produce new plan to tackle energy poverty amid fears of sky-high bills

The Government is to produce a new plan to tackle energy poverty amid fears that sky-high utility bills will push more people into the classification this winter.

Minister for the Environement Eamon Ryan will tell an Oireachtas committee on Tuesday that a new action plan to combat energy poverty will set out a range of measures to be implemented in advance of this winter.

The intention is to publish the plan after the budget — around the same time a crucial review into Ireland’s energy security is set to be published. It is currently out for consultation.

Mr Ryan will tell the committee on the environment that the review, which has already been delayed, will be put to consultation “in the coming weeks”. He will say his Department has “received the final technical analysis to inform the review”.

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The committee will hear there has been a “very significant increase in the number of people at risk of energy poverty”. A recent ESRI estimate shows up to 29.4 per cent of households are now spending more than 10 per cent of their income on their home energy needs.

Further analyses done by the ESRI and published last week by The Irish Times show up to 70 per cent of households could fall into the classification of energy poverty if recent price increases were repeated.

He will say that while the short to medium oil supply outlook has stablaised, the Government is “keenly aware” of the pressure on households facing bills and “recognises that more needs to be done as prices continue to increase and additional measures to support households are being examined in the context of the forthcoming budget”.

“The biggest energy challenge facing Ireland and Europe is the price of natural gas and its effect on gas and electricity bills as we head into the winter.”

He said concerns over electricity security of supply had arisen “largely due to the non-delivery of previously contracted capacity, increasing electricity demand, and the increasing unreliability of some existing plants”.

Sinn Féin environment spokesman Darren O’Rourke, who is on the committee, said he wanted to know “what buffer or headroom” there was in the electricity system if there were unforeseen outages in output from power plants. “The first thing we really want to know is assurances in terms of supply and generation capacity over the winter,” he said.

“The question has to be asked, what’s to say we won’t have another high demand period outage and what contingency is in place in that scenario.”

Meanwhile Government Coalition members and senior officials met again on Monday evening to discuss the energy security and supply situation caused by the war in Ukraine.

In a statement afterwards, the Government said it is very conscious of the concern of households and businesses around increased energy costs. “Over €2.4bn has been provided to help people with cost of living to date and the Government is continuing to assess how best to continue to help people over the coming months,” it said.