Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-03-04 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central I welcome the students from Finglas. They are very welcome and I hope they enjoy their day in Dáil Éireann. I hope it may spark and inspire some of them to come in some day as elected public representatives as well. Admhaím go bhfuil teaghlaigh fud fad na tíre faoi bhrú de bharr an mhéid atá ag tarlú maidir le praghsanna, go háirithe praghsanna a bhaineann le fuinneamh. Mar a dúirt mé inné, táimid ag déanamh machnaimh ar an scéal agus beimid sásta cabhair agus tacaíocht a thabhairt do dhaoine mar a rinneamar cheana nuair a bhí géarchéim ann le linn ghéarchéim na hÚcráine. There is a lot of uncertainty out there at the moment and no one should take advantage of that uncertainty to increase prices of energy or oil, be it home heating oil or on the forecourts. We are keeping everything under review in terms of the price situation and the impact on households. In the budget, we took very targeted measures to support people. One of the manifestations of that will be this wee when 50,000 families currently in receipt of the working family payment will receive their first fuel allowance payment and back pay on Thursday, 12 March. Any family on the working family payment will receive back pay of €380. That will help that cohort. That is a measure we took in the budget to include them for the first time in the free fuel allowance. The additional needs payment is also available for anyone in particular difficulty. The Minister for Social Protection has made it clear to community welfare officers to respond in that regard. Prices on the forecourts should not have increased. They can be influenced but typically, it should be three to four weeks after a particular event for prices to be impacted at the forecourts. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has asked the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to investigate the pass-through from wholesale prices to retail prices because we had elements of this in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and what happened there, although there was a longer lead-in during that crisis. Price increases came a bit later in the cycle. The Minister has asked the CRU to carry out an independent review of that and, in particular, the pass-through from wholesale to retail prices in particular. The Minister for enterprise has also written to the CCPC. We met with its officials on Monday and spoke about this particular issue. At the European Council in two weeks, there will be a specific focus on energy pricing. One of the more fundamental challenges is the coupling of gas with renewables in the price market and structure that governs the European energy market. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-04/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:43+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-04