Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We believe that our energy supplies are secure, or as secure as they can be in the current context. We used Russian coal to run the power station at Moneypoint. That has now been switched over to Colombian coal. We are not dependent on Russia or Ukraine for gas. Approximately one quarter or one third of our gas comes from the Corrib - it is our own gas - and the rest comes from the UK. The latter is gas from the North Sea and liquified natural gas, LNG, brought through terminals in the UK. We are confident at this stage that we will not face any disruption in the supply of gas, petrol, diesel or electricity. The long-term security issue will be resolved by renewable generation and hydrogen, but that is many years away.

We are more concerned about energy prices. Everybody driving by a forecourt this morning will have seen the price of petrol and diesel, with the psychological €2 per litre being seen in some stations. We have already seen increases in our gas and electricity bills. Unfortunately, because of the events in Ukraine, we are likely to see further rises over the next couple of weeks. The Government will respond. It has responded already in terms of the fuel allowance and the household discount for electricity bills. We are looking at other ways of responding, but we would be dishonest if we did not say to people and businesses that the reasons for the increases in price are largely outside of our control. The proportion of energy prices covered by taxation is falling, but we need to look at excise and see if we might do something there.

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