DARRAGH O’BRIEN HAS said that gas prices ‘will continue to drop’ next year.

He also said he is looking at “deploying grants to people who are in arrears”.

O’Brien is the Minister for Climate, Environment and Energy and the Minister for Transport.

Speaking to The Journal, he noted that he established the National Energy Affordability Taskforce in June.

This taskforce, bringing together representatives from across government and key energy sector stakeholders, seeks to identify and implement measures to enhance energy affordability.

O’Brien said he attended all the meetings of the taskforce and added: “That gave us some measures we could get put through in the budget, like the 9% VAT, which is about €100 euro saving per household.”

In Budget 2026, the 9% VAT rate on electricity and gas bills was extended to 31 December 2030.

Meanwhile, the Working Family Payment will become a qualifying payment for Fuel Allowance in March and this payment will be backdated to January 2026 and O’Brien remarked that this was “really important”.

“This means about a quarter of Irish households are actually getting support from the state,” said O’Brien.

He also said that the continuation of the energy credit was “not sustainable” and would have cost €3.3 billion.

Sinn Féin recently accused the Government of scrapping energy credits “despite warnings from their own officials”.

O’Brien said he recently met with the International Energy Agency in Paris and added: “Their outlook is that gas prices will continue to drop, we will see an easing in bills, according to them.”

Meanwhile, O’Brien remarked that “we import the vast bulk of our fossil fuel to support our energy system” and added that “we’re increasing our renewables” and that this will “reduce prices for people”.

Last year, renewable energy accounted for 40.2% of electricity generation in Ireland, up from an average of 5.1% in 1990-1994.

However, Ireland is the fifth-highest user of oil in the EU, with 51.2% of Ireland’s energy use relying on this fuel, significantly above the EU average of 37.4%.

O’Brien was also asked about the lag between a drop in wholesale prices and retail prices.

“The reality is that our energy companies will hedge and they purchase forward, they’re purchasing fuel in advance,” said O’Brien.

“When you see a wholesale price drop, understandably, people say, ‘when’s the retail price going to drop?’

“There is a lag time between the period where they’ve already paid at the higher price.”

He said the affordability taskforce is still in place and that it will deliver a final report next year.

“That will look at the charging mechanisms within electricity bills, what’s called the regulatory framework,” said O’Brien.

He added that the taskforce is “looking at arrears and looking to see whether we can deploy grants to people who are in arrears”.

“Not to pay the arrears,” said O’Brien, “but if they enter into a repayment plan, then we might be able to do something like solar grants for them to reduce their bill further into the future.”

He also noted that one of the four main energy providers, Electric Ireland, didn’t increase their bills and said “that wasn’t covered as extensively as some of the other increases that were there”.

“All of them have set up their hardship funds, and no one will be cut off,” said O’Brien.

“I would say to people who are in arrears or in difficulty to engage and we do have mechanisms to help people.”

-With additional reporting from Christina Finn