Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Energy prices are crippling ordinary people, business owners and even schools right across this State. At a time when people are enduring a cost-of-living crisis and undue financial burdens in a plethora of other areas, our regularly scheduled energy cannot break a person's back.

In this context, people expect the Government to do all it can to help alleviate this burden and it is welcome that energy prices were on the agenda for the European Council. One area where the Government utterly failed the Irish people was through its opposition to the decoupling of gas and retail electricity prices, in effect, burdening ordinary household and business electricity bills unnecessarily with volatility of gas prices. Decoupling was raised by several states at the energy council last week. The European Union's plan for affordable energy outlines scope for decoupling over the course of 2025 but, independent of that, it is within the Government's gift to do this now.

I ask the Minister of State in his closing remarks to address whether his Government spoke in favour of decoupling at the European Council, and if so, if he acknowledges it was a mistake not to implement this years ago while families and businesses are suffering. Does he accept the Government willingly did not employ every tool at its disposal to alleviate these undue financial burdens families and businesses are now suffering under? Will the Government begin to implement this necessary reform today and for the many months ahead?

See this speech in context