Irish Examiner view: Innovation essential to reduce costs

Irish energy prices are already amongst the highest in Europe. Picture: Stuart Boulton/Stock

We have a housing crisis, the cost of food and basic essentials is skyrocketing, and our infrastructure is creaking at the seams. On top of that, we have some of the highest energy costs in Europe.

Why? Well, the honest answer to the surging price of electricity and gas, is that nobody really knows. Certainly, since the Russians invaded Ukraine and Europe banned the sales of Russian oil and gas, prices have surged; but another factor is that the planned major investment in the electricity network is set to lead to price increases of up to €1.75 per month for the next five years.

Irish energy prices are already amongst the highest in Europe. Our apparent inability to meaningfully diversify away from gas-fired electricity generation is certainly a factor here and there is less competition amongst Irish suppliers — but these factors don’t tell the full story.

Researchers have admitted that limited data constrains our understanding of energy costs, but there is no doubt among consumers that prices are higher than they need to be.

Going forward, there does not seem to be any great desire on behalf of the Government to reverse the situation. Sure, the cut on Vat on energy to 9% has helped, and the public service obligation levy that consumers pay on their bills to help fund renewables has been trimmed from this year, but the price is still trending in the wrong direction.

Global gas prices remain crucial to the whole picture and while more renewables coming on stream will certainly impact on energy costs here, it seems we are still a prisoner to fortune.

We obviously need a greater understanding of the many variables which combine to set energy prices here and more data to fuel that understanding. As it is, we have a dangerous strategic reliance on imported gas and with the government plan to develop liquefied natural gas storage and the rollout of renewables both likely to take some time, we need innovative ideas to stem what appears to be an endlessly rising tide in energy costs.

Abundance of caution justified for EU presidency

In the second half of next year, Ireland will assume the presidency of the EU and while many plans have already been laid to cope with the influx of visiting leaders from throughout the bloc, there is one major known unknown.

While we can expect much tighter security measures in and around the various events we will host, we have no idea of the level of threat involved, or what shape or form it might come in.

Just last week, Department of Defence briefing materials prepared for the newly appointed minister for defence, Helen McEntee, noted that European security will likely be the “dominant context” of Ireland’s presidency during the second half of 2026.

Officials warned that the trend of hybrid activity, which they described as “systemic, coercive behaviour directed by a state actor and designed to damage a target” is expected to increase over the coming years, but especially so during Ireland’s presidency.

Hybrid activity, they indicated, can take place across all possible domains, including “systemic foreign interference in the information space” — and especially so in the context of elections.

In the document presented to the minister, such activity also includes sabotage, instrumentalisation of immigration, cyber activity, radio frequency interference, and attacks against critical infrastructure.

Ongoing preparations for Ireland’s presidency include the spending of some €19m on anti-drone technology — much needed as we saw recently — while across Europe there are sustained and increasing efforts to ensure critical functions such as energy and water supplies, telecommunications, and transport functions remain operational during a crisis.

All this might seem a little far-fetched and unnecessarily worrisome, but it is actually a much-needed and vital part of our overall security at a time when there are evident holes in our security blanket.

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Moments for us all to cherish

We live in a world that in so many ways is disconnected right now, what with wars, civil unrest and widespread discontent, but that makes what has been happening daily in airports all over the country so much more heart-warming and, well, just nice.

Even in a world so connected by telecommunications, social media, and satellite technology, the disconnect that has riven communities here and across the globe, somehow vanishes into the ether in our airport arrivals’ halls.

The sheer joy of homecoming for Christmas is something that is seemingly timeless and joyous and, perhaps, more unique to Ireland.

In a country whose history is characterised by mass emigration, we are perhaps touched more than most by the simple act of coming home, even for a short spell. And in an era where a housing crisis has dispatched further thousands of young Irish people abroad simply because they cannot find, or afford, a home of their own here, Christmas has become even more poignant. The evidence is to be seen daily at our airports.

With people coming from all corners of the globe these days and not simply the traditional emigrant hot spots of Britain, America, and Australia, the unconfined joy of simply coming home to mums, dads, families, pets, and friends, or to home cooking and the pleasure of a drink with best mates in the local, puts a smile on every face. Hundreds of thousands will have come home through Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Knock, and Kerry airports in the past week alone and thousands more will arrive in the next 48 hours and theirs is a joy and an unbeatable high which it is hard to match.

As a nation and a society, we need these moments of reconnection and togetherness. Welcome home, everyone.

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