ENERGY SUPPORTS FOR households and businesses will form part of the budget in October, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has confirmed.

Speaking to reporters at Government Buildings, he said energy bills are not falling fast enough, despite the fall inflation. 

He indicated there will be a mix of universal and targeted measures to help people with energy bills, adding that more money will also be targeted at retrofitting homes.

“Our expectation is that electricity and gas prices will fall, but they won’t fall enough or fast enough between now and next winter for us to say that there is no longer a case for supports,” he said.

So I think it’s pretty obvious that people will need help with their energy bills this winter coming.

The financial support will be funded from the proceeds of the Energy Windfall Tax, the final part of which was agreed by Government today.

“It is a separate pot to the regular budget pot, it is a particular pot being raised for a particular purpose,” he said.

Last year, at the height of the cost-of-living crisis, a package of supports was rolled out, including the installment of a series €200 energy credits. 

Varadkar said the “easy option” would be for government to roll out another energy credit this winter.

“You can just take it off the bill, it applies to everyone,” he said.

However, he added that the detail of how the energy supports will work has yet to be finalised.

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There were targeted supports last year, with the Taoiseach indicating that there will be a repeat this year also, “recognising that poor households might need the help more”. 

there will be desire as well to do a bit more in helping people with their energy efficiency,” he said.

There is also a desire within Government to help people “a bit more” with measures to promote energy efficiency, he said.

“We’ve had about thirty or forty thousand homes retrofitted already this year which is pretty good going… and I see more and more people taking on solar panels, we want businesses and households to do that,” Varadkar said.

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