Sir, – Instead of providing temporary subsidies, energy rebates and excise duty cuts to reduce the cost-of-living pressure on consumers and businesses in the upcoming Budget 2027, the Government should instead focus on taking actions to reduce the costs of goods and services and thereby provide more long-term savings for consumers.
An example of such action would be eliminating tolls on roads that have already been paid for (EastLink and M50) impacting hundreds of thousands of journeys each week. Some loss of VAT revenues to Government, but major savings to commuters.
Another example would be the partial or complete decoupling of electricity prices from wholesale gas prices. No matter how much electricity is generated from “cheap” renewable sources, the current “marginal pricing” system of coupling electricity prices with gas prices means that consumers will never benefit significantly from a shift to renewable sources.
As an interim, why not set electricity prices at 50 per cent of the wholesale gas price? This would significantly benefit all households at no cost to the Government or taxpayer, with the cost being borne by those energy companies currently enjoying super profits at consumers’ expense. It would also reduce the future impact on prices arising from the conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Permanent reductions in costs which lead to reductions in prices for consumers are what is needed. – Yours, etc,
FINTAN REDDY,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.
