The Government was “taking over 60% of the price on a litre of diesel” in direct taxes.

Short-term energy relief ‘inappropriate’, says Chambers

Updated / Thursday, 5 Mar 2026 07:41

Political Correspondent

Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers has said it would not be appropriate for the Government to provide short-term relief to households and businesses in light of rising energy costs.

Mr Chambers said such temporary supports would “incentivise, potentially, further behaviour within the market”.

“I think it would be inappropriate in that context to intervene when we don’t know how this will evolve in the coming weeks and months ahead,” he said.

The minister said the Government understands that households and businesses “may feel acute pressure in the coming days”, but that any response needs to be measured.

Mr Chambers said there are “legitimate questions” and reasons to believe profiteering is at play in cases where fuel pumps saw price increases within hours or days of the war in the Middle East, seeing as the purchase of the fuel “was prior to any issue emerging in the Gulf region”.

It comes as Minister for Energy Peter Burke asked the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) to urgently investigate reports of price gouging in the home heating oil sector.

The minister said there has been a huge increase in oil prices in recent days but this is not mirrored by a shortage of supply.

He said that he also wants industry representatives to explain what is happening to him at a meeting in his department on Friday.

“I want them to explain the price structures. I want them to explain how can we see a significant increase when wholesale supplies should have been pretty stable.

“And I want to communicate to them as well, and for them to communicate to their members that the CCPC is actively monitoring the situation and is conducting an investigation for me, which I want to report back urgently,” he said.

Hauliers seek Govt supports as diesel costs rising ‘nearly on hourly basis’

Hauliers are calling for emergency supports to help them with the rising price of fuel linked to the war in Iran.

The Irish Road Hauliers Association (IRHA) has warned that diesel prices are likely to go beyond €2 per litre.

Speaking to RTÉ News at One, Ger Hyland, President IRHA, said that since the weekend, the price of diesel is rising “nearly on an hourly basis at this stage”.

He added, “it’s [price] gone out of control”.

Mr Hyland said hauliers are contacting the organisation saying they cannot get supply for “two or three days” and they cannot get a price for that supply “until the morning of the fill”.

He said that if hauliers are paying more for fuel, that will “absolutely” be passed on to consumers.

“We have no choice, we’re being taxed out of existence,” he said.

Mr Hyland described as “phenomenal” the amount of Government-generated tax that hauliers have been hit with since January this year.

“The road tolls have increased, our minimum wage has increased which has an effect on every wage level up along, we have the auto-[pension]enrollment, and if that wasn’t bad enough the Government put six cent on a litre of diesel,” he said.

He said the Government was “taking over 60% of the price on a litre of diesel” in direct taxes.

He called for the carbon tax to be suspended “immediately,” especially for the road haulage sector. “Because everything that you wear from the shoes on your feet to the Corn Flakes on your table, everything, is delivered on the back of a truck, and it’s going to have a huge inflationary effect.”

He said hauliers were not “making money” this year following the extra costs they have incurred since January, “and this coming in on top of it is going to tip a lot of them over the edge”.

Mr Hyland said the industry had been calling for the Government for years to examine Ireland’s fuel importers because of “the way the price structure was”.

“The Government needs to wake up here, they’re asleep at the wheel,” he said.

The President of the Irish Creamery Milk Supplier Association, Denis Drennan, said that his association was “inundated” with calls from farmers complaining about “flagrant” price-gouging and price-jacking.

Mr Drennan said that there were instances of farmers who had received calls on Monday informing them that quotations for fuel they had received the previous Friday were now to be disregarded and that they could expect to pay 25% more than had been originally quoted.

He said that people were infuriated as they knew perfectly well that the suppliers had themselves not paid the new higher ‘war’ prices and were merely using the outbreak of hostilities as an opportunity to ‘gouge’ their customers.

Taoiseach warns against energy price gouging

The Taoiseach has said that no one should take advantage of the global uncertainty to hike prices on home heating oil and motor fuel.

Micheál Martin told the Dáil that the Government will keep everything under review in terms of support measures for households.

He pledged to look at the issue in “the broader sense” but would not pull the rug from the funding generated by the carbon tax.

That tax is given back to the people in fuel poverty payments, to farmers, and it funds the retrofitting of homes, he said.

Mr Martin said he believes it should be three to four weeks before any petrol and diesel prices rise.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said there had already been massive fuel hikes in home heating oil and gave the example of an elderly woman in Wexford who has seen the price of oil for her home almost double.

There is also a rise of around 10 cent on the litre at the fuel pumps, she said.

Ms McDonald said the Government is being passive and called on them to drop the plan to increase the carbon tax in the coming weeks.

“You can’t do nothing as these price shocks hit home,” Ms McDonald said.

Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik said people were at breaking point because of the cost of living crisis.

She said the crisis has been turbocharged by global instability but also by the Government’s policies.

What was happening was price gouging, she said, and called on the Government to act.

Mr Martin said the Coalition had acted with both once-off cost of living payments as well as permanent measures such as hot school meals and free schoolbooks.

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