Professor Barry McMullin:

Or energy credits. There is some merit in that, certainly. You can also come at it from the other direction by increasing the price of fossil fuels. You can do both - you can have a revenue-neutral approach that increases the price of fossil fuels and uses that to subsidise the price of electricity. These are all approaches that should be in the mix for consideration. Of course energy affordability is central, particularly for fuel-poor households. Any measures along these lines have to be very carefully considered and planned in order to protect access for everybody to adequate energy for dignified living. Virtually everything one does in an industrialised society involves energy usage. This is a well-studied question. We have included some suggestions and references in our submission, particularly the idea of tradeable emissions quotas which has not been deployed in any country to date. It came very close to being deployed in the UK in just before 2010, but the UK Treasury eventually rejected it on the basis that it was an idea ahead of its time. It said it was eminently practicable and would probably have the desired effect but it was ahead of its time. I suggest that its time may have arrived.

I absolutely sympathise with everyone who is struggling with prices in general and energy prices in particular but, being very honest, we are in a crisis. The transformation we require – it is not a transition – in our energy system is not going to be fast and it will not be cheap. We are taking an energy system which was developed incrementally over 100 or 150 years and, because we have left it so late, we are trying to replace it over the course of a couple of decades. That is going to be expensive. If we are to succeed, energy will have to be more expensive, relative to other things we spend money on, in household budgets over the next several decades. If we can do this successfully, there is a much better situation on the far side but we are now in a bottleneck. I think it is important to be honest about that.

There is another point I would make on gas prices particularly, but also fossil fuels in general.

Ireland has been chronically dependent on imports of energy since the foundation of the State. The huge project at Ardnacrusha was fantastic for a fledgling State, but electricity was a tiny part of our energy and it was really discretionary energy at that stage. Transport and heating relied on coal, liquid fuels and peat. During the Second World War we were held to ransom by our nearest neighbour. We know that from the Cabinet papers released afterwards. There was a deliberate policy choice to restrict the flow of coal to Ireland and it caused substantial hardship here. It was out of our control. I am old enough to remember the oil crises of the 1970s, which were the same story. The events in Ukraine were the same story.

We have never seriously grappled with taking control of our own energy. I am not saying we have to be completely self-sufficient in energy. That would be possible but we do not have to go all the way. However, our current situation is a disproportionate reliance on energy imports of all sorts, particularly fossil fuels. It is because our energy system is still dominated by fossil fuels that we have this problem. We are continuing into an increasingly fragile geopolitical century, crossing our fingers and hoping people will not notice little old Ireland and we will be fine. That is not a strategy for the turbulent times ahead.

Enhancing our energy security means doubling down on indigenous energy sources, primarily wind and solar, plus getting into the driving seat of extremely large-scale energy storage because that is needed to complement so-called variable renewable sources. It is perfectly possible but it is not as mature as wind and solar. Traditionally, Ireland relies on other countries to do technical innovation but this is a case in which Ireland is at the sharp end. It is in our national interest to be at the leading edge. We have been at the leading edge of incorporating wind and solar into our grid. We are a world leader in doing that but we need to take the next step, which is the deployment of long-duration energy storage.

All of this will cost money. It goes back to the point I made earlier. There are conflicts with our other economic priorities. Pretending there are no conflicts will not help matters. Some of that will contribute to energy being a bigger visible chunk of expenditure for households, companies, hospitals, schools and everybody. If we are open and honest, we will discuss the reasons for doing that and for the risks we are taking. Geopolitics can leave us with our economy in tatters, in the gift of some foreign despot.