Addressing energy challenges, and launch of Ibec Budget 2023 campaign

The latest CEO Update to Ibec membership from Danny McCoy

Dear Member, 

It is now becoming increasingly clear that Ireland is entering a major energy crisis with rapidly escalating concerns in the business community in relation to rising prices and security of supply issues. Long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ibec has been concerned about Ireland’s security of supply position and strongly lobbied for a thorough security of supply review. This review has yet to be delivered by Government and the recent acknowledgement by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) that planned emergency generation capacity to address a growing supply-demand imbalance will now not come on stream for winter 2022/’23, has heightened our concerns. 

Ibec is engaging extensively across industry and with both the Government and the CRU to help address these growing risks. We believe that more effective coordination and engagement with industry and all of the relevant State bodies is essential in order to bring a more comprehensive Whole-of-Government response to the crisis. It is also vital that Government urgently rolls out a set of subvention measures for those businesses most impacted by the current cost increases. With many members reporting that their energy costs are set to rise by a factor of up to 4 or 5, no time can be lost in delivering these supports. At a time of such unprecedented cost increases, it is also vital that market regulation does not heap unnecessary cost on business and Ibec has significant concerns in relation to recently announced and further planned regulatory and tariff changes. We will be prioritising this crucial issue in all of our engagements with Government over the coming weeks and months. 

Such competitiveness concerns in relation to energy and labour costs are at the core of our Budget 2023 asks. Earlier this week, an Ibec delegation including Ibec President Frank Gleeson, Deputy President Imelda Hurley and myself met with Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath to detail the key asks of the Ibec Budget 2023 submission.  

We will formally launch our Budget campaign next week, and I will be back in touch with you Monday morning to share a copy of our submission and details of how you can get involved with the campaign. In addition, I would also like to invite you to attend our virtual briefing session that will give a detailed overview of the Ibec Budget submission and broader campaign on Tuesday, 30 August at 11am via Microsoft Teams.

As always if you have any queries, please do get in touch. It is always good to hear from you. 

Regards,

Danny McCoy
Ibec 
CEO