Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-04-23 ============================================================ Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow I thank the Deputy. Of course, the Government did not wait. It brought forward, objectively, one of the largest packages of supports in the European Union to assist our citizens. It is either the largest or second largest package in the European Union, depending on how you look at it, and it is around two and a half times larger than the average package in the European Union. While I welcome the European Commission's high-level proposals of yesterday as an important contribution to this discussion, we in Ireland, in this Oireachtas and in the Government, did not wait for the European Commission to come up with a list of ideas. To the Deputy's question, I welcome the high-level proposals published yesterday. They are being discussed today and tomorrow at a meeting of the European Council in Cyprus, where our Taoiseach will represent the country. I hope that meeting provides an opportunity to put a bit of meat on the bones of further areas where the European Union can bring forward opportunities to act. I welcome that the proposals yesterday referenced the ability of countries to go beyond the energy tax directive. The Deputy will remember that I brought a financial resolution into this House in which we went beyond the energy tax directive on diesel. On that occasion, we did so more to get ready to ask for forgiveness than permission. I welcome the recognition from the European Commission that it needs to give member states flexibility in relation to that. I also note that the Commission's proposals say that measures should be targeted income measures. That is why we extended the fuel allowance. I welcome that the Commission said measures should be temporary because I think we have to stay agile and flexible during this crisis. It is hard to predict where the global economy will be in six weeks, let alone in six months. That is why our current measures run to the end of July. The Commission says that taking action on excise duty is an option, which is why we have cut the excise duty on diesel by 32 cent and on petrol by 27 cent. Between the green diesel excise duty cut and the support scheme, the cut for a litre of green diesel is 27.5 cent. The Deputy is right that the Commission said there are options that can be considered in relation to electricity. I note it said it will soon adopt a legal proposal in relation to this, and Ireland will constructively engage on that. There is an interesting question, quite frankly, as to what more we can do around the structural cost of electricity. To give the Deputy an example, and I read the same article today as he did, we want to invest a lot more in upgrading our grid. We want to make sure more electricity is produced from renewables. The question of how much of that will come on to the household bill versus how much of it will come from the resources of the State is an important and legitimate debate. We are already planning on spending €18 billion on upgrading the grid. Is there more that can be done in that space? We will work constructively at a European level in this regard. We have already acted on the VAT rate on electricity. The Deputy will remember that we took the decision to extend the lowest rate of VAT that we can levy on electricity. That 9% rate has been in place since 2022, but it has constantly been rolled over. We took a decision early on to provide certainty that the rate would be in place until 2030. That measure has already come at a cost of about €1 billion. We do not rule out taking further actions - no Government can - but an energy crisis in the summer months is very different from the challenges that people could face in the winter months. We have to make sure that we intervene, as we did with the largest or second largest package in the European Union, but also that we have an ability to intervene further. As the Deputy and all of us know in the context of this crisis, no matter what happens in Iran, the damage done now to the energy infrastructure means it will take a significant time to repair. Therefore, we have to be agile. On the Deputy's point on the surplus, I am very pleased that there is a surplus. It did not come about by accident and did not fall from the sky. The sensible, pro-enterprise policies that this country has implemented mean that we have a fiscal buffer built up. The surplus is not just sitting idle. It is going into infrastructure and climate adaptation, through those funds, and into the Future Ireland Fund to meet, for example, pension requirements. It provides us with options. --- 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/2026-04-23/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-23