National Oil Reserves Agency (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-26 ============================================================ Joe Conway (IND), Cultural and Educational Panel Go ginearálta, cuirim fáilte roimh an mBille seo. Tá sé tráthúil agus riachtanach i ndáiríre. None of us will be unaware of conflict that has begun in the Middle East which has created huge supply disruption, probably the biggest in the history of the oil market internationally, mainly due to the halting of the shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, as Senator Clifford-Lee mentioned. Some 15 million barrels of crude oil and 5 million barrels of oil products traverse that strait each day, equivalent to about 20% of the global oil consumption. These flows have now slowed to a trickle. The loss of supply is having significant impacts on global markets, as well as ours, pushing up the price of crude oil to above $100 a barrel, leading to much higher prices for some refined products, notably diesel, jet fuel and liquified petroleum gas, LPG. Concerns are naturally growing about the impacts of higher prices on households, businesses and the broader economy. I welcome what the Minister of State said about the NORA levy, which will give some respite to our hard-pressed consumers, those involved in transport, SMEs and businesses of all types in the country. However, there is an urgent need for Government to launch an information and education package for the population in general. There are a number of things that we can very quickly do on the demand side. I am sure the Minister of State is familiar with this document that came out a few days ago from the International Energy Agency, Sheltering From Oil Shocks, which lists ten devices that can be used by governments and the open economy in all countries. I will instance some of those: working from home where possible; reducing speeds on national highways by at least 10 km/h; a broad campaign to encourage the use of public transport; perhaps the consideration of private car assets to be used on alternate days in big cities to promote the increase of car sharing and the adoption of efficient driving practices; road commercial vehicles and delivery of goods to foster within what is called the logistics industry driving practices that may involve more regular checking of the efficiency of trucks and lorries to reduce idling, breaking and accelerating - all those things that are good driving practice; and, for the small percentage, admittedly, in this country who use LPG for fuel for road transport, to consider the diversion of that when the conversion operator is in use in cars. On the luxury side and the industries outside of that, we could encourage, coming up to the tourist season, a downplaying of air travel where other types of travel are possible. We could also consider what might be even more patriotic, namely the staycation. Then we have concerns about petrochemicals. This is a very big worry for us because it is not just oil deliveries being stopped at the Strait of Hormuz; there is also a huge backlog of fertiliser and fertiliser products, which will cause great difficulties for farmers coming into the serious growing season. There must be some targeted response to that as well, which I am sure the Government is considering. I saw in the Irish Daily Mail today an article which mentioned the levy or the release of relief for private jet transport. I am sure very few people in our State would agree with the use of extending the relief to people flying executive jets, but I know it is a drop in the ocean as to what we are considering. Mainly, I want to say two things. Obviously, the Seanad Independent Group, SIG, would be delighted to see some respite and relief given to the consumers and SMEs in particular, but to dampen down the demand side, the Minister of State might consider, in conjunction with his colleagues, the idea of a very robust education and promotion campaign. Those of us who have occasionally watched boxing matches will say that probably the deadliest thing a boxing opponent has to stand up against is a series of combination punches. In recent years, we have had combination punches from Covid, the Ukraine crisis and now this one, which is probably the worst of all. The problem with combination punches is that they often put the opponent down. We have had a succession of these impacts now. It is very important we make the right response in order that our economy can remain buoyant and robust through it all. With that, I thank the Minister of State for bringing forward the Bill. I hope we can, on the day that is in it, get through it fairly fast. --- 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/seanad/2026-03-26/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:47+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-26