Mr. Declan Cronin:

There are a couple of issues in the discussion. We have to separate out the price of the barrel of oil and the price of the refined product. Out of a barrel of oil, there is so many percentage petrol, diesel, paraffin or whatever can be got out of a barrel. Due to the increased demand over the past number of weeks in the likes of kerosene, paraffin and even agricultural diesel, the tanks of many major supplies that come into Ireland ran low, so there was a shortage of some of those products.

There are two comments I would like to make. One is on the smaller retailers around the country. I was brought up in this business in Cork and I have no doubt that in the next 20 years many of the small retailers in rural areas will go out of business because there is no profit in selling petrol and diesel.

In terms of the refined product coming into Ireland, my belief is we are too dependent on a few refiners. Over the past number of years, the big major suppliers such as Shell, BP and all of those companies left Ireland. They had a supply source because they had their own refineries. Now I believe only one company in Ireland has a refinery that is actually supplying to Ireland, and they are supplying many of the companies. That is what I am asking for research to be done into that. We could easily have a short supply of some of these products in the morning, as was shown in the past few weeks.