'New poor' suffering fuel poverty

IRELAND’S “new poor” were suffering from fuel poverty, Labour energy spokeswoman Liz McManus told the Dáil.

Research on a sample of 500 disconnections by Bord Gáis showed that 59 per cent of the households were owner-occupied. “Only 2 per cent were in social housing,” Ms McManus added.

“Overcome by unemployment, high mortgages, family breakdown or illness, these are the new poor who live in private estates and in terror waiting for the company man to come and disconnect an essential service.”

An estimated 60,000 Irish households lived in persistent fuel poverty and a further 160,000 experienced it intermittently.

According to the ESB, she said, about 10,000 customers a month were agreeing a payment plan to cover their bills. Bord Gáis had stated that about 20,000 customers were currently carrying arrears of more than €500 and the same number were in the “final resolution stage” where disconnection of supply was a possibility.

Ms McManus was introducing her party’s Private Members’ motion calling for Government measures to tackle fuel poverty. The motion, which will be voted on tonight, notes that electricity prices increased by almost 5 per cent at the start of this month.

Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan outlined Government measures on the matter, saying there were protections in place for particularly vulnerable customers.

“For example, suppliers are prohibited from disconnecting elderly customers in the winter months or those dependent on medical devices that use electricity.”

The Commission for Energy Regulation, he said, had agreed to review policy on disconnections, specifically looking at how the costs were allocated across the industry and to the customer.

Mr Ryan said Irish prices for the average domestic electricity consumer were below the euro zone average by 2 per cent.

He said the warmer homes scheme, operated by the Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland on behalf of his department, was established to address poor thermal efficiency performance of low-income housing. Under the scheme, structural improvements would be made to an additional 22,500 low-income homes by the end of this year.

Mr Ryan said a national retrofit programme would draw together the existing energy-efficiency programmes into a single framework, delivering upgrades to one million residential, public and commercial buildings in Ireland.

Fine Gael spokesman Leo Varadkar said his party believed energy policy should be based on three principles: reducing the price of energy, ensuring security of supply, and increasing the amount of energy produced by renewables.

Sinn Féin spokesman Martin Ferris accused the ESB of having an “uncooperative attitude” in dealing with struggling families making arrangements to pay bills.