Almost 320,000 domestic customers were unable to pay their electricity bills last December, according to figures from the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU).
The number of people unable to pay their energy bills in full rose to 319,459 in December, up from 264,458 in December 2024 – an annual increase of nearly 20 per cent.
Overall, 14 per cent of domestic electricity customers were in arrears last December. The average value of an account in arrears that month was €466.
The percentage of domestic electricity customers in arrears for more than 90 days in December was 8 per cent, the same proportion it has been since May.
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There was a sharp increase in the number of people unable to pay their energy bills towards the end of last year: up from 297,313 in September to 300,515 in October and 303,465 in November.
Sinn Féin’s finance spokesman, Pearse Doherty, said the increase at the end of 2025 was linked to the removal of energy credits in the budget.
In recent years, the Government introduced one-off energy credits to help people with higher gas and electricity costs: €600 in 2023, and €250 for both 2024 and 2025. However, the credit was not included in the most recent budget.
“We need to introduce a cost-of-living package immediately, and part of that needs to be the energy credits,” Doherty told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland on Friday.
“Every one of those 319,000 households is a family, is a family that can’t pay their electricity, and I think it’s a complete stain on the Government’s record that one in seven households across the State can’t pay their electricity.”
Doherty said the Government also needed to “hold [energy] companies to account in relation to the sky-high prices and the profiteering that is happening”.
Housing minister James Browne said energy credits were part of “emergency measures” put in place to help households with rising costs.
“What we need to do, and what we are doing, is moving towards a more medium- and long-term approach where we can reduce those costs permanently for people.”
Speaking on Morning Ireland, Browne said: “In the last budget, the VAT reduction on electricity and gas bills was extended out to 2030; an increase in fuel payments from €5 to €38 per week, and nearly half a million homes get the benefit of this."
