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

When the Government introduced the reduction in excise in the early part of 2022, prices were between €2.10 and €2.20 per litre. Every reduction comes at a cost to taxpayers generally. Well over €1 billion has been provided by way of revenue foregone by the Exchequer to fund the reduction in excise, which was always intended to be temporary. What we did was split the restoration into a number of phases. It has been fully restored, bar the final phase. That is due to happen on 1 August. I have given a commitment to keeping it under review in the lead up to that point in time because there is a lot of volatility at the moment. We have all seen the prices creep up again, even independently of the restoration of excise. What is happening in the Middle East is not helping. Geopolitical tensions and conflict all feed in to the ultimate price that consumers pay.

I will keep it under review, but we should be honest and acknowledge that what we are doing here is talking about restoring cuts to excise that the Government made in the early part of 2022 in an effort to help households and consumers.

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