Increases in the price of home-heating oil in the aftermath of the Iran war were around eight times higher in Ireland than elsewhere in the European Union.<\/p>\n
Figures from the European Commission’s weekly oil bulletin show between 23 February and 2 March the price of home-heating oil here jumped by 27.3% – rising from \u20ac0.96 per litre to \u20ac1.23 per litre.<\/p>\n
This was the largest weekly increase across all EU countries, and compares with an average increase in price across the EU27 for heating oil of 3.3%.<\/p>\n
The EU member with the next highest increase after Ireland for the period was Austria, where home-heating oil price went up by 9.6%.<\/p>\n
The figures quoted by the European Commission are retail prices, and therefore include government taxes such as VAT, excise duty, and carbon taxes.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the bulletin, Sinn F\u00e9in MEP Lynn Boylan said it is “yet more clear evidence that gouging is happening in the home-heating oil market”.<\/p>\n
“The industry is taking advantage of an awful situation to pocket bumper profits. It’s morally bankrupt behaviour,” she said.<\/p>\n
Ms Boylan has also criticised the Government’s response to soaring fuel prices, saying it “needs to tackle the blatant gouging”.<\/p>\n
Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke has asked the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission it to carry out a review of the retail energy market due to the sustained price rises in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Chief executive of Fuels for Ireland Kevin McPartland has repeatedly denied allegations of price gouging by the industry, saying suppliers here are dependent on wholesale market prices.<\/p>\n
In Ireland we use kerosene for home-heating oil, whereas other EU countries use a less-expensive diesel-like product, and according to Mr McPartland the increase in kerosone prices has been “far higher than in petrol and diesel markets” in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
He also said taxes on kerosene used for home-heating oil are contributing to the significant difference in prices paid here and elsewhere in the single market.<\/p>\n
Mr McPartland said “no one else in the EU pays a tax on home-heating oil”.<\/p>\n
In addition, the industry spokesperson said that while only a small amount of petrol and diesel that’s used in the EU travels through the Strait of Hormuz, around 30% of kerosene used in the EU comes through the shipping lane.<\/p>\n
At the start of this week, home-heating oil prices reached \u20ac880 for a fill of 500 litres, which represented an increase of nearly \u20ac400 when compared to before the latest conflict in the Middle East began last weekend.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the price of a litre of petrol has reached \u20ac1.90 per litre at some service stations, with the cost of diesel going well above \u20ac2 per litre at some forecourts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Increases in the price of home-heating oil in the aftermath of the Iran war were around eight times…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-469794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}