I welcome those from Mercy College, Woodford, County Galway, who are in the Public Gallery.

I want to express my condolences to the families of those whose lives were so brutally taken during the horrific gun attack on Bondi Beach on Sunday. Our thoughts are with those families, the injured, the wider Jewish community and, of course, with the people of Australia and Sydney. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamnacha.

Households hammered by relentless hikes in energy and electricity prices are in disbelief today. They have awoken to the news that their bills are set to increase even further. Electricity network charges are being hiked, forcing hard-pressed households to carry the can for upgrading the grid. Customers here, as the Taoiseach knows, are squeezed to breaking point just to light and heat their homes. They pay among the highest electricity prices in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of working households cannot pay their energy bills because of these non-stop hikes. Price-gouging energy companies are making bumper profits to the tune of millions of euro, if not billions.

In the past couple of months, we have seen energy companies, one after the other, jack up their prices so that a million households now face higher bills this Christmas. They fleece people at every turn and the Government has not laid a glove on them. Worse than that, it has actually enabled this behaviour.

At the same time, the Government cancelled energy credits in a budget of €9.4 billion, in which, astonishingly, it managed to leave working people worse off. It has also increased the price of petrol, diesel and home heating oil. Now people face another increase to their already unaffordable electricity bills.

The upgrading and modernisation of our national grid is incredibly important. It has to be a priority. God knows real progress is badly needed after decades of terrible planning and chronic underinvestment by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. It simply beggars belief, however, that ordinary households will be hit with another increase to improve the grid while energy companies laugh all the way to the bank. Energy companies are making millions of euro, eye-watering profits. It is incredible, therefore, that struggling customers will be asked to fork out again.

If the Government really cared about fairness, if the Taoiseach's Government cared at all, it would put the onus for funding this upgrade where it belongs: on the mega-rich energy companies and other large energy consumers. It would not go to ordinary people again. The Government should not be adding a single red cent to these rip-off bills, especially during such tough times. It should be about getting costs down, reducing electricity prices and making life affordable.

Tá an Rialtas ag roghnú billí leictreachais daoine a mhéadú ag an am is measa, nuair atá teaghlaigh faoi bhrú uafásach cheana féin le billí ollmhóra le híoc acu. Ní féidir leis seo dul ar aghaidh. The Government's failure to tackle the energy rip-off leaves people in desperate situations. Not alone is the Government not doing anything to help working people; it also stands by as these bills will be increased again. Does the Taoiseach think this is a fair way to treat people already fleeced by non-stop electricity price hikes? What is his response to today's news? Will he intervene as Head of Government to put a stop to this increase?

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. Before I begin to respond, I want to take a moment as well to express my sympathy to and solidarity with the Australian people and with our Jewish community here in Ireland as they come to terms with the horror and the grief of the mass shooting event at Bondi Beach on Sunday. Fifteen people, including a ten-year-old child and a Holocaust survivor, were cruelly murdered and more than 40 others injured for no other reason than their Jewish faith and identity as they gathered to celebrate Hanukkah. I am acutely conscious of the feelings of vulnerability and isolation that an event like this can cause among our own small Jewish community. I take this opportunity to send a very clear message from the Dáil, and as Head of Government, that our Jewish neighbours are an important and very valued part of our society and that there can be no place for antisemitism or antisemitic rhetoric in our State.

In respect of the issues Deputy McDonald raised, first, price review 6, which will facilitate investment of up to €18 billion in our energy grid, is essential and will copper-fasten and benefit every job and every potential future job in the country and will underpin the building of 300,000 houses and their connection to the grid and the electrification of the public transport system. It is a major decision by the Government. The Government has allocated €3.5 billion in equity to help to leverage and underpin the enormous investment that will occur from this. In many respects, this is a decisive moment in respect of the energy grid.

I acknowledge fully and understand the pressure people are under in respect of energy bills. Part of this announcement is the work of the national energy affordability task force, which was established by the Minister and which has already published its first report. Its task is to identify measures that will reduce electricity prices in the short term and permanently. Some of its measures were delivered under budget 2026. These include the decision to extend the reduction in VAT on electricity from 13% to 9% and significant work on the fuel allowance.

We included those on the working family payment. An extra 50,000 people will be paid the fuel allowance in March and that will be backdated to January. Of course, we increased the fuel allowance. An extra €140 will now be available for over 450,000 recipients between September and April. The €400 income tax disregard for households involved in energy microgeneration has been extended. There are also the budget measures more generally.

Retrofitting has grown significantly over the past number of years and is making a real difference to many houses. A deep retrofit can save over €1,100. Approximately 228,000 upgrades have happened now in terms of homeowners. Some €1.5 billion has been allocated for that. This year alone, another 64,500 home energy upgrades will happen, in addition to 14,300 local authority upgrades. We are progressing significant change in energy consumption within our households, more generally.

The affordability task force has to look at the more fundamental issue of the regulatory framework that governs energy prices in this country. That is a key objective of it, allied with European initiatives that will be required in terms of how energy is priced in the European market.

We have had price hike after price hike. As I said earlier, not a glove has been placed on any of these gouging companies. Some 1 million households will face higher bills this Christmas. Over 300,000 households are in energy arrears. A so-called affordability task force has done absolutely bugger all to achieve affordability for those households and struggling families. We have a Government that is prepared to sit back and let households suffer. That is what I hear. Nobody is contesting the need for investment in the grid but the Government needs to accept the reality of what is happening in households right across the land as we approach Christmas. The reality is that working households, and let me emphasise that I am talking about working households, cannot meet their bills. Today, they wake to the news that in fact those bills will be increased again. I ask the Taoiseach not to offload this to some task force. What will he do to ensure that those bills can be met, that they are reduced and that families can have an affordable life again?

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine-----

Oh Jesus, do not start.

-----we did allocate up to €3.3 billion in energy credits. The bottom line is that universal energy credits on an ongoing basis are simply not fiscally sustainable. The resources we have must be targeted, particularly to low-income families, which is what we have done. The Deputy wants everybody, irrespective of income-----

No, I want working people to be able to pay their bills.

-----forever and ever to be getting energy credits. She wants the wealthiest in society-----

No, I do not.

-----to benefit from energy credits. She does. That is what she asked for.

One voice.

This is disgraceful.

Whereas I believe that what we did with the fuel allowance and what we have done-----

You are a disgrace.

-----with the working family payments and so on is the proper way to proceed. We also have to change the regulatory framework. That is not simple work. It is under way, though, and will ultimately help us to deal with the issue. The bottom line is that €18 billion is an enormous sum of money. The Deputy has not given any rational explanation as to how she thinks it should be------

Can you make the energy companies-----

You are giving it to the energy companies.

Jesus, the indifference is stunning.