On 6 October last year, just one week before the budget, People Before Profit brought the first motion into this Dáil calling for price controls on energy and the renationalisation of the energy supply sector to run it on a not-for-profit basis, to protect people against a cost-of-living crisis that was only in its infancy at that point. At that stage it was being warned that people may be facing increases of about €500 per year in energy costs. Needless to say, the Government completely dismissed and voted against the proposals for price controls and the renationalisation of the energy sector. Ordinary families, working people, pensioners, people with disabilities and those on low and middle incomes have suffered the bitter fruits of the Government’s failure to support those measures one year ago. Since then, the crisis has got very much worse. We are not looking at €500 per year increases but at energy costs doubling and trebling. Some estimates suggest they will go from an average of €2,000 per year to €6,000 per year.

People are being crucified. These hikes are simply not affordable for huge numbers of people and on Saturday, 24 September, at 2.30 p.m. in Parnell Square, I expect there to be thousands, if not tens of thousands, of angry and frightened workers, pensioners, students, people with disabilities and ordinary people appealing to the Government once again to take decisive measures to protect them against a cost-of-living crisis that is crucifying them and against an ongoing housing crisis.

It is very simple. Heating your home is not an optional extra. Having a shower and hot water are not optional extras. Having an affordable roof over your head is not an optional extra. Having the money to pay bills and put food on the table for your family are not optional extras but necessities. The Government has to guarantee that those needs of ordinary people, families and vulnerable people are met this year.

The people will march for energy price controls and controls on the price of food. They will call for controls on rent, to make housing affordable and to keep incomes, whether pensions or wages, in line with inflation costs. It is long past time that we took the companies profiteering from this cost-of-living crisis back into public ownership. Nationalise the energy sector and run it on a not-for-profit basis because heating, hot water and electricity are needs and not optional extras.

I will make two points to the Deputy. He said the problem has got much worse, which I outlined earlier. It was striking that he did not elaborate on why it has got much worse. It is because of Putin's war on Ukraine. The Deputy seems incapable of articulating that in the context of this energy crisis, as do many on the left, for some strange reason. The bottom line is that Putin's war in Ukraine and his weaponisation of energy constitute a major factor in the extraordinary price hikes we are witnessing. That said, we have to intervene, will intervene and did intervene since the Deputy raised it 12 months ago. Some €2.5 billion worth of cost-of-living measures were taken last year by this Government across the board to deal with the energy issue, the excise duty on petrol, diesel and so on. We reduced all of that last year.

You put on taxes as well.

We also increased the fuel allowance by 55%. That was a massive increase last year. Measures taken related to school transport fees, the school meals programme being extended and the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. The student maintenance grant payments went up by €200 per year. There was the holiday earnings disregard and so on for students. We did a range of measures. We cut public transport fare by 20% with an additional 50% cut in fares for young people, reduced VAT from 13.5% to 9% on gas and electricity bills until the end of October and gave a €200 energy credit to all households. The PSO was cut. The national retrofitting scheme, with free energy upgrades for those at risk of energy poverty, was initiated. We lowered the threshold for the drug payment scheme to €80 per month, benefitting over 70,000 families, and brought forward the working family payment budget increase announced on budget day. We abolished inpatient charges for children and much more. The point is we did not stand still throughout last year. We took measures.

You put on carbon tax.

Prior to that, during Covid, we took extraordinary measures to protect workers and the economy, which resulted in the fastest economic growth of any European member state since Covid. That gives us the resources to enable us to intervene again in a significant way on Tuesday two weeks with the budget and the cost-of-living package we will announce. If we had taken Deputy Boyd Barrett's measure and spent billions nationalising energy we would have very little left to allocate to anything right now. We have a significant surplus, some of which we will use to alleviate the pressures on households and protect jobs.

We will intervene because we realise people are under extraordinary pressures and are worried and concerned by the extraordinary price increases. We are in a dangerous moment globally, with a major war on the continent of Europe that has created the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since the Second World War, with millions of people displaced. There are huge problems with energy and migration because of that, and now with food in other parts of the world. That is the scale of what we are dealing with but we will intervene.

Of course the war in Ukraine has worsened the situation but that war does not explain wind energy companies making super profits even though their costs have not changed a bit.

Nor does it explain the profiteering of energy companies, which has been mentioned already, in respect of gas from the Corrib field, gas from the UK, from where we get most of it, or from Norway. It also does not explain the failure of the Taoiseach’s Government and other governments, although it is worth saying that countries like Spain have introduced price controls. France capped the level of increases that could be imposed but the Taoiseach’s Government, before the war in Ukraine started and when this cost-of-living crisis was in its infancy, refused to impose price controls when it was asked to do so in this Dáil through a motion we put forward. It also refused to extend eligibility for the fuel allowance or to take the energy sector back into public ownership. People are suffering a terrible cost while those same energy companies’ profits increase. By the way, while the war has made the situation worse, we have the highest utility costs of almost anywhere in Europe. We also have the highest childcare costs. We have seen the biggest increases in rents and house prices of anywhere in Europe. That is a specific Government failure in this country and alibis based on what is happening internationally do not justify the Government’s failure to act comprehensively to defend people against this dire crisis.

We acted comprehensively to help people over the last 12 months and we will continue to do so. We will intervene again to take people through this winter period. We have to help people right through to the end of March. We also have to protect jobs, just as we did during the Covid pandemic. Whatever the Deputy’s views, and although he will never accept this, we took the economy through the pandemic and we protected jobs during that time. An unprecedented recession occurred in the first year of the Covid pandemic and, because of unprecedented and innovative responses from the Government, enterprises and jobs were protected. We also protected incomes to such a degree that people were able to re-engage in the economy once the recovery started. Our targets were exceeded. We support measures to reduce the exorbitant revenues companies are gaining. I refer particularly to wind generation but also to fossil fuel generation. That will be dealt with. At the end of this month, in two weeks’ time, the European Union will make a decision on that, which I think is important. We will follow that and we support measures such as those that have been identified.