A REPORT BY the International Energy Agency has found that residential electricity prices in Ireland are three times higher than the wholesale cost.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) provides policy recommendations and analysis data on the global energy sector.

In a report published this week on analysis and forecasts of renewable energy to 2030, the IEA noted that “some countries promptly passed wholesale price increases on to consumers during the energy crisis”.

It added that “many utilities in these countries only partially reflected the subsequent wholesale price declines of 2023 and 2024”.

The IEA found that this disparity was the largest in Ireland, “with the energy component of retail prices three times higher than wholesale prices”.

The report also found that residential electricity prices have increased in “many advanced economies” in the past five years but that the “scale of the increase varies drastically among countries”.

It added that EU countries have some of the highest residential electricity prices in the world and that prices are highest in Ireland and Germany.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald today accused Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil of “standing idly by as price-gouging energy companies brazenly rip off customers”.

Speaking during Leaders’ Questions, she remarked that the difference between residential electricity prices and wholesale costs is “price gouging plain and simple”.

Addressing Taoiseach Micheál Martin in the Dáil, McDonald said: “You refuse to take-on the energy companies, and you vote down our proposals to get energy costs under control, and, worse still, in last week’s Budget you removed energy credits from hard-pressed households.”

She added that “big energy companies are making bumper profits on the backs of working households”.

“People know for a long time that they are being gouged and ripped-off on their energy bills,” said McDonald. “You now have the proof.”

Her party colleague Pa Daly added that “consumers are being ripped off and the government refuses to do anything to stop it”.

He added: “Unlike other European energy companies, Irish suppliers chose to keep prices high. 

“And over recent weeks, there has been a spate of increases across the board.

“This is yet another body blow to Irish households who are barely making ends meet.”

Elsewhere, Independent Ireland leader Michael Collins has called for an urgent Dáil debate to discuss the findings of the IEA report.

“What we are seeing here is not just the latest example of rip-off Ireland, but the outcome of disastrously mismanaged energy policies that have left us at the beck and call of international suppliers,” said Collins.

He added: “As a result, Irish households and businesses, which are already in line of further dramatic price increases from all major Irish suppliers, are going to find it more and more challenging to meet what are already unsustainable cost burdens.”

Collins also called for “action from government which protects the interests of households against exploitative practices within the energy provider sector”/