Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The truth is that different countries have adopted different approaches to this issue. The focus now is on ensuring that the reductions we have seen at the wholesale level are passed on as quickly as possible to customers at the retail level. That is where our focus needs to be, and to encourage the companies in that regard. We went from a peak of approximately £7 per therm of gas to about £1 per therm now. The long run average has been approximately 50p, so it is still double that, but far below where it was just last year. The companies have benefited from that dramatic improvement in the wholesale market. Of course, I hear what they say about hedging and the way they sign up to futures contracts, but I welcome the fact that we have seen some reductions beginning to be passed through to customers. Rather than Government interventions on price, the focus should be on the market delivering those reductions back to consumers.

I will address the question of why the Government, some months ago, did not go down the road the Deputy has suggested. Different countries have adopted different approaches, and we have discussed that at the Eurogroup and ECOFIN meetings that I have attended during the past three months. We could not have confidence regarding what the cost of doing that would have been to the State. Our colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, in particular, monitor other markets and the approaches other countries have taken. We opted for providing direct supports to households through electricity credits, the social welfare system, the fuel allowance and so on. However, now we are at a point in the cycle where it is about applying downward pressure on prices, rather than the Government stepping in to put caps in place.