Taoiseach expects cuts in residential energy prices to come 'in the near future'

The Taoiseach has said he expects cuts in residential utility bills to be expedited in the near future by Ireland’s various energy providers as global gas prices continue to fall. Picture: Niall Carson/PA

The Taoiseach has said he expects cuts in residential utility bills to be expedited in the near future by Ireland’s various energy providers as global gas prices continue to fall.

“It only took a few months for prices to go up, it should only take a few months for them to come down,” Leo Varadkar told the Dáil during Leaders’ Questions.

"We expect them to come down in the coming months” he said, adding it is “encouraging” that two cuts have been announced to date, for residential customers by Pinergy and for businesses by State-owned provider Electric Ireland.

The Government was accused of having a “hands off” approach to alleged price gouging on the part of providers by Labour leader Ivana Bacik, who decried the “unfairness and inequity” of the crisis, which she said has seen the numbers of Irish people living in poverty increase by 76,000 over the past 12 months.

Mr Varadkar replied that the Government’s action regarding the energy crisis amounts to more than just “polite encouragement ”.

“There is a windfall tax coming, it will be legislated for in this house and in the Seanad,” he said, adding that legislation will allow for some of the profits accrued by the utility providers to be given back to those who are struggling to pay their bills.

A series of price hikes on the part of energy providers across 2021 and 2022 saw residential utility bills reaching record levels during the recent winter months.

However, while global wholesale gas prices have declined precipitously in recent weeks following a mild winter, it had not been immediately clear that those benefits were to be passed on to customers.

The Taoiseach said the windfall legislation will see a “super tax” being applied to the Corrib Gas Field, with a tax likewise applied to energy generators, while a “special dividend” may be applied to the profits of State provider Electric Ireland.

He said that efforts to introduce a windfall tax will be slowed by the fact that it is “not known what the profits of the various providers were from last year.

Separately, Mr Varadkar welcomed the agreement reached between the European Commission and the UK leading to a resolution regarding the issues surrounding the Northern Ireland protocol, but declined to condemn the DUP for what Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald described as its “ongoing boycott of democracy” in the absence of a functioning executive in Northern Ireland.

He said it is “reasonable” that the DUP be given “a bit of time” to consider the new agreement and its implications.