Mr. Brendan O'Connor:

This touches on nearly all the questions we have received today. They all have been excellent questions, like the Deputy's. All these energy prices are imported, so there is this massive shock to the Irish economy. Gas prices on wholesale markets in early March were ten times above their average price. They are currently approximately three times above it, so there has been a threefold increase to energy suppliers' inputs. Unfortunately for all of us, that is reflected in retail prices.

The Government has made its policy decisions. The effort was to try to alleviate some of those prices for everybody to some extent and then to target additional supports for lower income groups, such as fuel allowances and so forth. I am not 100% sure if I can say much more than that. Controlling prices has come up previously and I had to apologise to one of the Deputy's committee colleagues earlier. It is definitely not my realm. I am not familiar with those legislative powers or what could be done. All I can say is that somewhere someone has to bear these costs. Unfortunately, energy suppliers or energy producers elsewhere in the world are benefitting and economies that import this stuff, like ours, are poorer as a result. What does one do? Does one try to compensate the entire economy for all of these increases? That is one option. It was tried previously in the 1970s and it was probably a factor for the super high inflation and low growth we got afterwards. On the other hand, does one try to alleviate the burden for those who need it most through people who are on State supports such fuel allowances, which is the strategy that is being followed now? They all are difficult policy choices.