No excuse for price rises at petrol pumps, says Micheal Martin

The Taoiseach has said there is “no excuse for prices going up at the pumps yesterday, or indeed anywhere” because Irish oil “is coming from the North Sea and we don’t want any price gouging going on”.

The Irish premier was speaking to the press before his cabinet met on Tuesday, when he was asked about reported increases in petrol and home heating oil costs.

He said “we don’t want anyone taking unfair advantage of consumers and people” because of the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

Mr Martin acknowledged “there will be implications from it over time, if the situation doesn’t stabilise in the short term”.

But he added: “Given the fact that people have an adequacy of supplies right now and given that a lot of our oil is coming from North Sea, which comes from Norway, there shouldn’t be these kind of increases that people have been commenting on yesterday.”

He said he would raise the issue with the Minister for Energy Darragh O’Brien and met the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission about it.

The Government has asked them to “examine the industry and the sector in terms of any unfair pricing practices that is under way”, he said.

He added that before the outbreak of the war, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities was already working with the Government on an “energy affordability taskforce” and “there’s a lot of work going on” at a European level about the “overall structures that govern energy prices”.

Heading into the same cabinet meeting, the Irish Enterprise Minister was asked about the potential impact of energy price rises on the economy.

Peter Burke said the country has seen “solid growth” despite “a very unstable geopolitical environment” over the last year.

But he said energy prices reached “about 48 euro per kilowatt hour” on Monday, which he described as a “very significant increase”.

He said: “When you look at the peak in Ukraine, it hit 348 euro, so that was a very extreme time.

“So, there’s always going to be concerns, everything we do in business really is related to energy, a lot will depend on that, a lot will depend on the duration and what the disruptions are, a lot is uncertain right now.”

Labour and the Green Party were among opposition parties calling for support for households in light of the escalating conflict.

Green leader Roderic O’Gorman said: “In the short-term here this war is driving up the cost of oil and gas when people already can’t afford to pay their energy bills.

“The Government needs to closely monitor this. If this conflict drags on, the Government needs to be ready to take targeted measures to help the most vulnerable.”

Labour TD Duncan Smith said: “There will be an impact economically, and that will be felt by ordinary working people in Ireland.

“This Government have turned their back on cost-of-living packages and that is something I think they need to bring back onto the table, because we will see it, not just at the petrol pump, but we will see it in the aisles of our supermarkets as well in the coming weeks.”