The government will explore windfall charges on power companies to help pay for supports for households and businesses.
That is according to Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, who appeared on RTÉ Radio 1 with Brian Dobson in recent weeks.
He told the presenter: “We have the capacity to meet [energy] demand in the coming winter. The real challenge comes with the price.”
“We expect to be able to provide the power that this country needs in the next 2-3 months. We do not envisage the sort of, you read in the papers and elsewhere, kind of dramatic scenarios in terms of real problems in that regard.”
Dobson then said: “But that is the contingency planning, isn’t it?” to which the minister responded: “You always contingency plan for every eventuality, but do we not expect it.”
The minister said that the “real challenge this coming winter is going to be on the price side”, and that, he added, is particularly important for householders and businesses.
He explained that both householders and businesses are going to “have to do a lot more” because that is the real challenge this winter.
He confirmed that the government would have to set this out in the budget possibly in the form of windfall charges to help fund supports for householders in “very difficult” times.
Dobson then asked the minister to clarify if this would mean windfall charges on power companies, to which the minister agreed.
The minister continued: “We need to make sure we have the funding and finance available to get to what is an unprecedented time in terms of the price shock that we and every other country in Europe are undergoing at this present time. That is the biggest challenge in this coming winter.”
“As well as keeping the lights on, we have to make sure people can afford the power coming through,” he concluded.
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