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

I thank the Deputy. It may well be the case that there are companies that are profiteering on the back of the current international climate around energy prices. Those issues are not entirely within the control of any government or of the European Union acting as a collective. The European Union leaders, when they meet at European Council tomorrow and Friday, will be examining this issue in the round, inclusive of the issue of energy prices that is having such an impact on our people, households and businesses and our economies. As the Deputy will know, we are seeing a significant increase in the wholesale prices in the markets. That is a reality that suppliers, distributors and retailers are having to face.

The week before last I was part of a delegation of Ministers who met a number of the key stakeholders operating in the sector in Ireland, including Fuels for Ireland, which is a representative body, and the Irish Petrol Retailers Association. We had a lengthy and good discussion with them about the challenges, how the markets are working and how the prices are feeding their way through from the wholesale level through to the level being paid by the consumer on the ground.

The Deputy mentioned the issue of the ESB. As he will know, the Government is a significant beneficiary of any profits earned by the ESB. In the past ten years, the Government has received €1.2 billion in dividends from the ESB. The ESB is on a green transition which involves major capital investment over the next number of years of the order of €2 billion per annum to be invested to assist us as a country on that journey. The ultimate insurance policy in terms of this issue is our reduced dependence on fossil fuels and our reduced dependence on us being an importer of energy. That is why the Government is excited by the potential of floating offshore wind. Over the next number of years, we will see major initiatives in that regard. We have already passed the enabling legislation, the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021. A new regulatory and licensing regime is now being put in place by the Ministers, Deputies Eamon Ryan and Darragh O'Brien. We look forward to seeing the progress of that over the period ahead.

What we are experiencing here as a result of, first, Covid and now, the appalling invasion of Ukraine, is an international market where the normal balance between supply and demand has been completely disrupted. This has resulted in a significant increase in prices that consumers in this country and throughout the world are facing. The Deputy will have heard me say earlier on the record that the rate of inflation in the UK today is 6.2% and in the United States, it is almost 8%. The suggestion that we as a small open trading economy can deal with this issue entirely on our own is just not realistic.

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