Households and businesses will receive financial support in the Budget to help pay energy bills this winter, the Taoiseach has confirmed.
An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the Government expects wholesale electricity and gas prices to fall, but the market price drops will not happen in time for this year’s Budget.
He said it was “pretty obvious that people will need help” in paying energy bills during the winter.
The financial support will be funded from the proceeds of the Energy Windfall Tax.
“It is a separate pot from the regular budget pot, it is a particular pot being raised for a particular purpose,” he said.
The specifics of the supports have not been worked out yet, but Varadkar said the “easy option” is allowing homes and businesses to avail of an energy credit similar to measures in last year’s Budget.
“You can just take it off the bill, it applies to everyone,” he said.
The Taoiseach told RTÉ that poorer households may require additional support in combating the cost of living crisis.
Varadkar expressed a desire for more homes and businesses to use solar panels, pointing to a recent uptick in homes being retrofitted.
“We’ve had about thirty or forty thousand homes retrofitted already this year which is pretty good going… and I see more and more people taking on solar panels, we want businesses and households to do that,” he said.
Sinn Féin TD Sean Crowe recently called for greater Government supports, saying that over 400,000 households are now in arrears as a result of rising energy costs.
The Dublin South-West TD said, “households are under huge pressure from the cost of living crisis; they need help and they need it now.”