Government lacking 'political will' to bring down electricity prices, says Boylan

Vivienne Clarke

Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan has accused the government of lacking the political will to bring down the cost of electricity for households.

The Taoiseach was on the record in the Dáil saying that energy credits were underpinning gouging, she said.

"If he believes gouging is actually happening by the electricity companies, then for the last five years we've been calling for greater teeth for the regulator to have oversight of the pricing mechanisms of energy companies. And the government has done nothing to tackle that,” she told RTÉ radio’s Today with David McCullagh show.

"There's no political will from this government to actually bring down the cost of electricity for households, and yet they still won't help customers either. So they're not doing either thing, is the problem though.

"We know that energy credits can't go on indefinitely year after year, but you can't leave people at a cliff edge as well when all of the data is telling you people are falling further and further behind into arrears.

“People are really struggling, and this government made a decision in this budget to not give them any supports when it came to electricity, but they made political decisions to give big developers plenty of supports.

"People shouldn't have to make that choice in the winter between eating and heating."