Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers has strongly downplayed any cost-of-living supports in the short term even as energy prices look set to rise steeply in the wake of war in Iran.
Speaking in Dublin on Wednesday, Chambers said there was an “extremely volatile, uncertain and unpredictable pattern emerging”.
While the Government will continue to assess the position, it “won’t be taking any immediate response”, he said.
The previous coalition spent billions of euros supporting households and firms in the face of the inflationary shock that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but the current administration has set its face against once-off spending such as universal energy credits.
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He said intervention at this stage is “highly unlikely”, arguing that last year’s budget measures were “permanent, affordable and sustainable – and that’s the position we’re taking in the context of the period ahead”.
It would not be appropriate, he said, to respond to price changes of recent days. “We’re not making any reactionary decisions on the basis of something that’s just started over the last number of days”.
Asked about petrol and diesel prices creeping above €2 per litre on some service station forecourts, he said his view was that “a lot of this is price gouging” and “pure opportunism by certain retailers” rather than something that could be tackled by cutting State levies or taxes on fuel.
“We have to be very careful about making ad hoc interventions, where they aren’t temporary, and they become permanent, and where expectations are raised,” he said, adding that the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission should tackle any price gouging “head on”.
He said the Government would produce updated growth projections in the coming weeks which would take account of geopolitical volatility, but reiterated that the current position “is that there isn’t any intervention on the table”. He also confirmed that carbon tax increases slated for May would go ahead.
Chambers was speaking after he received Cabinet approval to draft the Critical Infrastructure Bill, which the Government says will speed up the construction of homes, roads, water treatment plants and energy stations.
He said the legislation will stop projects being delayed for months by allowing projects in the national interest be designated as critical infrastructure, mandating approval bodies to priorities these projects and compelling State agencies not to take positions that could delay projects.
A Dáil vote will be needed to designate a critical infrastructure project – with Chambers indicating that a new planning application for an extension to the Rotunda maternity hospital “could well” fall within the definition.
He also pointed to the Greater Dublin Drainage Project as an example of one that could be labelled as critical infrastructure.
Chambers said that developing infrastructure has been “dominated by vested interest in the last decade”, which has seen “very specific procedural or technical concerns superseding the broader national interest in infrastructure”.
The Government is also developing emergency powers legislation, which he said is “more complex” but which would essentially skip some consenting stages if a project meets certain criteria. He said that people will have an opportunity to make submissions or observations but that “inefficiency and delay won’t be tolerated”.
He labelled some interventions as “pure objectionism from a particular vested interest” which have a “degrowth philosophy and just want to stop everything”.
