Jennifer Whitmore

We had not seen any kind of reduction like that in Ireland.

The regulator was tasked last November to do that report, that analysis on price gouging that the minister spoke about.

I raised it in the Dáil last week or the week before with the minister.

There was no update at all.

We are now in April.

We are seeing another energy supply crisis.

And it would appear that the government and the regulator are sitting on their hands and they're actually not investigating prices.

why any reductions were not being passed on to consumers in Ireland.

And now consumers are going to see their prices rise again.

It's completely unacceptable.

And the government has taken far too much of a hands-off approach to dealing with this crisis.

It is a big frustration for people.

When I raised this in the Dáil with the ministry, he essentially said this has nothing to do with us.

They're an independent organisation.

And so I've requested that they come in front of the committee, the Climate and Energy Committee.

That will be happening in a number of weeks because they need to explain why they are so slow with dealing with this issue.

I think it's just, you know, as Christine said, it's the slowness of government to actually deal with this and look at it in a long term fashion.

I mean, I look back, actually, Social Democrats first called for a significant investment in solar panels to deal with the Ukraine crisis in 2022.

So, you know, we've been calling for this kind of measure for years now and it's been completely ignored.

It's a complete blind spot for the government.