Today the Society of St. Vincent de Paul launched a report entitled, Growing up in the Cold, which exposes the grim reality of thousands of families living in energy poverty. One in six households spends more than 10% of its income on heating and electricity.

Older and lone parents are particularly affected. Significantly, the report highlights that 42% of children living in the private rental sector experience energy poverty and 36% of children living in social housing have the same difficulties. The report clearly shows a relationship between poor-quality accommodation and energy poverty. The report states that 140,000 children are living in homes with leaks, damp and rot. One parent quoted in the report said:

There are six of us with two bedrooms, living room, kitchen and bathroom. We have one small heater, and we move it from room to room.

One small heater is a clear breach of minimum standards.

Two years ago, this House passed a Sinn Féin Private Members' motion on standards in the private rental sector. It called for an NCT-style certification system for private rented housing, adequate resourcing for local authorities to ensure meaningful inspection and enforcement and a review of penalties for non-compliant landlords. Two years on, what has changed? Last year, just 9% of private rental properties were inspected. Of these, 82% failed to meet minimum standards and less than half of these had their breaches resolved by the end of the year. This is simply not good enough. The Government's failure to resource the enforcement of minimum standards is leaving tens of thousands of people, including thousands of children, living in the cold and its failure to properly fund the maintenance of council housing is leaving thousands of the State's tenants in unacceptable conditions. In light of the depressing findings in today's report, will the Government fully implement the proposals in the 2017 Sinn Féin motion, which was passed without opposition in the House, and actively consider implementing the seven recommendations in the Society of St. Vincent de Paul report published this morning?

The Deputy has given me the courtesy of a very direct question. Unfortunately, I have not yet had the chance to read that report so I would have to look at it before I could tell him which recommendations we can and cannot implement. I acknowledge that many people in Ireland experience energy poverty, or fuel poverty, if one prefers to use that term. This is particularly relevant at this time of the year during the winter as days get darker and colder. We are all aware that quite a considerable number of people every year across the western world, including Ireland, die as a result of cold-related illnesses.

What are we doing about it? There are four main measures. First, the fuel allowance will go up again in a few weeks in January. We are investing in retrofitting social housing to make sure we improve the quality of that housing and make those homes warmer. New building standards mean that pretty much all new buildings and new homes are near zero-energy buildings. The better energy warmer homes scheme can assist people to retrofit their homes and make them warmer. Local authorities also have a role to play. Many parties opposite are in controlling positions in local authorities and can reduce or increase property tax or commercial rates. They also need to be held accountable for their decisions where they choose to reduce property tax instead of, for example, investing in housing and other services or perhaps choosing whitewater rafting as a priority over other issues when they get control of a local authority.

It would be remiss of the House not to acknowledge the significant progress that has been made in recent years in reducing poverty. Notwithstanding the many individual stories of people suffering and families in distress, we know from the CSO survey on income and living conditions, published last week, that poverty in Ireland has fallen for five years in a row. It is at its lowest in a very long time. Deprivation rates are falling and income inequality is at its second lowest since records began. This is a considerable achievement that perhaps does not always come across when we tend to focus on hard cases, however real they may be. We are seeing significant progress in reducing poverty, including child poverty, and deprivation in recent years. This did not happen by accident. It happened because we have jobs, the economy is being well managed, the minimum wage has been increased and incomes and pay are increasing. Take-home pay is increasing because of reductions in tax and increases in social welfare. Those will continue as long as we manage the economy and public finances well.

The great difficulty is that under the Government's two-tier economic recovery, increasing numbers of people are being left far behind. There is a fuel allowance but it comes nowhere close to covering the rising cost of fuel. Retrofitting of local authority stock is ongoing but one must wait for two to three years to get one's windows or doors replaced. The new standards for building are very much in question when local authorities are not being funded by the Government to adequately inspect private rental tenancies.

Local authorities have a role to play but let us not forget that, thanks to the Government and its Fianna Fáil predecessor, local authorities lost 25% of their staff during the recession. That was the single greatest loss of staff in any sector of the public service.

I ask the Taoiseach to study carefully the report from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and its seven recommendations, and then come back to this House to tell us which of those recommendations should be implemented. I also ask the Taoiseach to respect the democratic decision made by this House in November 2017 and to implement fully the recommendations of the Sinn Féin Private Members' motion to ensure that all private rental properties are fully inspected and all minimum standards are fully adhered to in order that no child is living in energy poverty because of the failure of the Government to fund adequate enforcement of inspection of properties in the private rental or local government sectors.

I have immense respect for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul as an organisation and I will look at the report. The Government will issue a reasoned response when it has had a chance to consider the report.

On the wider issue, everyone is entitled to their own opinions but they are not entitled to their own facts. If we had a two-tier economic recovery in Ireland, we would not see income inequality at its second lowest level since records began in 2004, nor would we see consistent poverty falling dramatically as it has in recent years. We would not see deprivation going down or 40,000 children lifted out of child poverty in recent years.

Things vary from region to region and the experience is not the same for every family but the experience in Ireland is, broadly, that we are going in the right direction. Unemployment is down and incomes are rising while poverty and deprivation are falling. Those are the facts and no amount of politics, populism or spin can cover those up.

The Deputy spoke about inspections of properties and the new Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act gives new powers to the Residential Tenancies Board and there are additional inspectors. The first cases are now under way. By 2021, it is anticipated that one in four properties will be inspected so, roughly speaking, every property will be inspected every four years. Money is being provided for this by central Government but it would be helpful if those parties in control of local authorities that could help to contribute to the cost of that would do so, rather than cutting the local property tax or investing in white-water rafting.

Since the Taoiseach has not read the report from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, I will read some passages from it:

Light, heat and power are fundamental requirements to participate in society and a prerequisite for social inclusion. ... [Last] year, SVP spent more than €5 million helping people with the cost of energy - an increase of 20% on the previous year. We are therefore concerned about the current and future impact of energy price increases on the households we are assisting - the majority of which are families with children. Furthermore, amid the current housing crisis, [the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is] meeting more and more families who are forced to put up with substandard accommodation, with issues like damp and mould commonplace. Members are particularly worried about the risk of poor health for children living in these conditions for long periods of time.

The report notes "A household is considered energy poor if it is unable to attain an acceptable standard of warmth and energy services in the home at an affordable cost." Some of the figures in the report are stark. Households with children are more than twice as likely to be in arrears with utility bills than households without children. Some 140,000 children are living in homes that have issues with leaks, damp and rot, while 31% of lone parents are spending more than 10% of their income on energy and one lone parent in seven is in severe poverty.

I wish to raise a couple of issues beyond those raised by Deputy Ó Broin. The fuel allowance was increased to a generous €5 - I am joking - in the most recent budget. It is clear that it will go nowhere near meeting the increases in carbon tax that were brought in in the same budget. Moreover, not all of the poorest children who rely on social welfare are in receipt of fuel allowance.

As a member of the Joint Committee on Climate Action, I pursued and won the support of this House for a fuel poverty study to be carried out prior to the carbon tax being increased. As the Minister and the Government failed to do that, we must revisit the question of fuel poverty among 140,000 children, who will be waiting for Santa Claus in freezing cold and who, the report states, will huddle together in one room in an attempt by their parents to heat that room rather than have them separated throughout the house.

I want to highlight three areas of the Taoiseach's failure. The first is the housing policy and the over-reliance on the private sector. A private landlord can apply for grants to retrofit and secure a home with insulation. A tenant cannot do that. The second is the blind insistence on increasing the carbon tax for everybody, regardless of their situation. The third is the lack of ambition shown by the Government in its policies on retrofitting. The Government is leaving people in the private rented sector, as well as those who are council tenants, completely vulnerable. Councils do not have a budget this year for retrofitting homes. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, is inadequately funded to do the job that is required.

I am not sure I can add much to the response I gave earlier but to reiterate, the fuel allowance, or the energy allowance, as it will be called, will increase in January and that will help people with their energy costs. The child dependant allowance also will increase, which will help the poorest families who have children with bills in general. We are retrofitting social housing. One of the policy decisions we made in the budget was to ring-fence any additional funding coming in from an increase in the carbon tax for climate action and just transition.

That is pie in the sky.

We are using the proceeds of that carbon tax increase to pay for more retrofitting of social housing to increase the fuel allowance. We are also building more social housing. Approximately 11,000 houses will be added to the social housing stock next year, while 10,000 were added this year. Those houses, three quarters of which are new builds, are built to the highest standard and are warm homes. I have been in many of those homes and have seen how comfortable they are. They are a huge improvement on the very old social housing stock across the country that needs to be upgraded. That can only be done, however, year by year and bit by bit.

The fuel allowance goes up to €24 a week, not €5 a week. For those in receipt of the fuel allowance, it will compensate them, and then some, when it comes to the carbon tax. I appreciate that some people do not receive the fuel allowance but of the worst-off, the lowest income quartile in society, most do receive it. The cost of the carbon tax increase is approximately €40 per household but the fuel allowance increase is approximately €50, so it more than compensates those in receipt of fuel allowance. I appreciate it varies from household to household and people have different heating systems but that is the case, generally speaking.

The Deputy mentioned that the carbon tax applies to everyone. I wonder if she understands how carbon tax works. It is not possible to apply carbon tax to some people and not to others. The whole point of a behavioural tax like carbon tax, like the tax we have on cigarettes and alcohol, is that it does apply to everyone. The more carbon one produces, the more one pays. It applies to businesses as well. In fact, most of the carbon tax is paid for by businesses.

In case the Taoiseach is saying that the report the Society of St. Vincent de Paul issued this morning is some kind of fairy tale, I repeat that 140,000 children are cold this winter in the weeks leading up to Christmas. How does that make the Taoiseach feel? It makes me feel appalled.

I want to relocate where I believe the problem exists. The Taoiseach says the carbon tax is to change behaviour but he does not allow people to change their behaviour. People living in private rented accommodation cannot apply for SEAI grants and there is no compunction on landlords to have their homes up to standard. People living in council houses cannot apply for SEAI grants. The council must intervene and retrofit their homes. The Taoiseach, therefore, is penalising the most vulnerable and the poorest.

I will not repeat the statistics I read out at the start of my contribution but I wish to point out another major anomaly. Many people who move into council tenancy or buy their own homes are forced to go onto pre-pay power. A company known as PrePayPower Ireland released figures in November indicating that it has received a dividend in this country of €17.2 million.

That is outrageous when people are forced to use these cards. Yet, we have the highest rate of energy arrears in Europe. There is something desperately wrong when a company is making vast profits and ordinary people have to suffer in this way without any returns from the company to help alleviate the poverty and cold that children are experiencing this winter.

The Taoiseach to respond.

I appeal to the Taoiseach not to deny that what the Society of St. Vincent de Paul reported this morning is true. It is absolutely true and he should deal with the facts.

The fact that the Deputy feels the need to put words in my mouth and attribute remarks to me that I never made says to me that she is not interested in the facts.

The Deputy referred to council housing. As I mentioned, we have a retrofitting programme under way. That is in part being funded by the proceeds coming in from the carbon tax. We are building more social housing all the time. It is social housing to the highest quality ever.

It is at a snail's pace.

Approximately 10,000 additional social homes will be provided this year. That is more than any year in the past 20 through the boom and the bust. It will be up to 11,000 next year and 12,000 the year after. Approximately 60,000 new homes will be added to the social housing stock over the coming five years. It is probably the biggest social housing programme that has happened in generations. It is happening with homes being built to the highest quality and with the best energy ratings.