The T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris has asked officials in the Department of Finance to develop further measures to help households with rising energy costs.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Mr Harris indicated the Government is looking at once-off supports to help people become less reliant on fossil fuels, including initiatives that would allow people upgrade heating systems at their own pace and switch to more efficient vehicles.<\/p>\n
He’s now confirmed his department will seek to implement supports “with a particular focus on the structural costs that Irish people face regarding energy and electricity costs”, as the Coalition grapples with how to cushion the rising cost of living for householders.<\/p>\n
His comments come as the lead opposition party Sinn F\u00e9in continues to push for an Emergency Budget with more one-off supports as well as cuts to the Universal Social Charge and the removal of carbon tax on home heating oil and green diesel.<\/p>\n
The Labour Party has also called for immediate assistance for PAYE workers.<\/p>\n
The T\u00e1naiste last week ruled out such a mini budget in the short-term but added that he couldn’t rule out further cost-of-living supports down the line.<\/p>\n
“We have to do more to help people with energy costs in Ireland,” the T\u00e1naiste said, just over a fortnight on from the announcement of a \u20ac750m fuel crisis package.<\/p>\n
“I am now asking officials in my Department to work on options as to what Government can do further and to work with colleagues across Government – not just to help in the here and now, but to permanently and sustainably make progress.<\/p>\n
“So, I am asking officials to examine whether there are additional practical supports we can introduce to help people upgrade their home heating systems, including hybrid heat pumps or lower-emission fuels like HVO (Hydrotreated vegetable oil)”, he added.<\/p>\n
Officials will examine measures such as targeted grants, accessible financing and investment in retrofitting, renewable energy and the electricity grid.<\/p>\n
Mr Harris said making progress on energy affordability would be a key priority for him as part of wider efforts to address the cost of living.<\/p>\n
The cost of living is likely to be on the political agenda again this week amid the continuing uncertainty around the war in Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris has asked officials in the Department of Finance to develop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-419217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}