Sasko Lazarov / Rollingnews.ie Sasko Lazarov / Rollingnews.ie / Rollingnews.ie

FUEL PRICES IN Ireland continue to rise with the AA stating that the cost of a litre of either petrol or diesel is now the highest it’s been for 18 months.

The cost of petrol on average is now a full cent higher than it was in February at 137.7c. Diesel meanwhile is now 127.1c a litre.

The latest increase comes despite the price of a barrel of oil falling by $5 worldwide in the last month. You can track the evolving price of petrol here.

63% of the price of unleaded, and 58% of that of diesel is attributable to government taxation including VAT and excise duty, according to the AA, meaning that the wholesale price of oil can only affect prices here to a certain extent.

“While the latest increase is by no means the worst month-on-month hike that we’ve seen recently, it marks the sixth successive month in which we have seen prices climb and continues a trend which is of great concern to many motorists,” said the AA’s director of consumer affairs Conor Faughnan.

While it’s easy to say that the factors which cause these increases are outside of our control as a country this simply isn’t the case. The majority of what we pay at the pump is made up of various taxes placed on petrol and diesel and the extent to which we tax fuel spend is something we have direct say over.

While the AA’s figures represent the average prices seen nationwide, there does appear to be a deal of variance in what is being charged across the country, according to data taken from crowd-sourced site Pumps.ie, with individual vendors in different counties varying wildly in the prices they charge.

Faughnan meanwhile describes the continued rise in prices as a “major concern” for Irish motorists.

“On a wider scale this latest increase further highlights the need for our government to reassess the extent to which they tax fuel,” he said.

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