Ceisteanna ó na Comhaltaí Eile - Other Members’ Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-30
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. As I said earlier, we are in the midst of a very significant cost-of-living issue because of two major wars, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war in Iran, which have caused very significant increases in oil prices. Oil prices have risen from about $69 a barrel in February last to about $104 in May, while gas prices increased from €32 to €47 per megawatt hour. These are very significant increases.
In the last budget we brought in a series of measures under social protection to protect the lowest incomes. The Deputy said what we introduced earlier this year were limited temporary measures in respect of reducing the excise by 27 cent a litre on petrol and 32 cent per litre on diesel, 7.4% in terms of marked oil, and other measures we took in terms of hauliers, contractors and so on. The cost of that was €1.3 billion and they are still in place so they are not limited and they have not been too temporary either. The Government is examining all of that in the context of the budget.
The carbon tax is much lower than any of that. It is about 2 cent – that is the increase that will come - and we are looking at the home heating component of the carbon tax in terms of kerosene and gas because we realise that home heating is critical for pensioners and so forth. We examined that in the context of the forthcoming budget. However, there is a limit. If we go below a certain threshold of carbon tax we then have to pay carbon tax to Europe, essentially, under the ETS2. That makes no sense because the carbon tax is used for farmers, retrofitting and the energy-saving, cost-saving measures that Darragh O’Brien has been very effective on. He announced a further €115 million yesterday that will significantly benefit a lot of households to go solar or for other insulation, such as attic and cavity wall insulation, and batteries. All of that will bring down the cost of energy for individual households by close to €800 or €900 a year, which would meet some of the increases that have occurred over the last while since the wars broke out.
About 287,000 houses have availed of retrofitting grants and various measures that will help them permanently reduce their energy costs. We have to double down on that. We have to increase the availability of TAMS for farmers in respect of solar, for example, and we should make sure that happens comprehensively because that will make a difference. Where we provide a lot of resources across the board, farmers have shown they will respond by adopting measures and mechanisms such as solar to save and reduce costs. That is something we are very focused on doing.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-30