{"id":487452,"date":"2026-05-16T09:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T09:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487452\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T09:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T09:02:11","slug":"ireland-is-over-exposed-to-energy-price-swings-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487452\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland is over-exposed to energy price swings \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">As geopolitical tensions trigger disruptions in global <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/oil\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/oil\/\">oil<\/a> and gas markets, Europe\u2019s vulnerability to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/energy-crisis\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/energy-crisis\/\">energy<\/a> price shocks is once again in focus. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">European countries remain highly dependent on imported energy, leaving their economies and financial stability exposed to global price swings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">AIB reproduced an interesting graph in its latest economic analysis this week which tagged a country\u2019s fiscal space to its energy import dependency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The ideal place to be on the four-quadrant grid is the bottom left-hand corner which indicates good fiscal headroom (net debt as a percentage of GDP) and a low reliance on energy imports. Countries inhabiting this position include Estonia, Sweden, Latvia and Finland. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The worst position to find yourself in is the top right-hand corner which indicates poor fiscal space combined with high reliance on energy imports, a double bind in the current geopolitical climate. Countries in this position include Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and the UK.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ireland resides in the bottom right-hand corner, which indicates that while it remains highly reliant on energy imports, it has good fiscal headroom (courtesy of record tax receipts).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/2026\/05\/14\/irish-inflation-rises-to-37-on-back-of-energy-price-shock\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Irish inflation rises to 3.7% on back of energy price shockOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">While the Irish economy has \u2013 to a limited extent \u2013 weaned itself off fossil fuels, AIB says it remains highly exposed to price shocks, \u201cwith a renewed focus on decarbonisation required alongside short-term energy supports\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">AIB chief economist David McNamara says renewables account for about 16 per cent of Ireland\u2019s energy output compared to an average of 25 per cent across Europe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">His report cites recent Eurostat figures indicating Irish electricity prices are among the highest in Europe for both households and business users.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cTherefore, the economy is already in a relatively uncompetitive position versus European peers,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">All of which re-enforces the point that Ireland has been inordinately slow (in European terms) in pivoting to renewables and has become dangerously reliant on supernormal tax receipts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As geopolitical tensions trigger disruptions in global oil and gas markets, Europe\u2019s vulnerability to energy price shocks is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,2355,179,18,35808,15912,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-487452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cantillon","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-energy-costs","13":"tag-energy-crisis","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116583448316358330","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}