Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

At the end of July and in early August last summer when the price hikes really hit, my fear was that the impact would be far worse than the impact of Covid. That scale of price increase, which no one could predict would continue or otherwise, would be devastating for Irish business. Even though prices have come down dramatically since that spike, it has been very challenging for many businesses. That is why we introduced the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS, one of the other measures that was introduced as part of the range of different solutions to the problem - I did not mention it to Deputy Tóibín. It has been surprising, we need to look at the real reasons, that the uptake has been much lower than expected. We will look at that as part of the review of the range of measures.

No one knows for certain what is happening with energy prices; it depends on the war. Five or six weeks ago I believe I said publicly that I expected gas prices to remain at their very high level for the next two years. That was the best advice from the International Energy Agency and the European Commission and any analysis available to me. It has changed in the past five or six weeks for a variety of reasons. Europe has not used as much gas. The stores in Europe are nearly 80% full, whereas this time last year they would have been down at about 30%. We are going into this refilling season in spring and summer. It has also been a slightly warmer winter than average. For that and other reasons, the price of gas has come down very significantly from what it was five or six weeks ago. That will not kick into home bills for some time. It will depend because each supply company has different circumstances in terms of how far forward they are hedged. Some might even be hedged a year in advance. They might have bought gas at very expensive prices last summer and autumn and consequently would have very high price points into this year and up to the end of the year. Others may not have hedged their position and may be able to bring their prices down quickly. There are about 13 different supply companies, all of which have different circumstances. However, we want to bring that down.

The Deputy will recall the highest price of petrol and diesel was about €2.15 a litre.

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