Low prices for fossil fuels cost Exchequer €2.4bn

Total fossil fuel subsidies were €2.4bn in 2018 which was 8% higher than 2017. Picture: PA

Lowering prices for consumers on environmentally harmful fossil fuels through subsidies cost the exchequer €2.4bn in 2018, or 71% more than at the turn of the millennium.

Central Statistics Office (CSO) analysts calculated direct fossil fuel subsidies, such as the household fuel allowance, and indirect subsidies to estimate the total cost of fossil fuel subsidies from 2000 to 2018.