We are in a fuel crisis, “the worst the world has ever seen”, according to Tánaiste Simon Harris. But what does that mean for the ordinary person, how did we get to here – and what’s going to happen next?

Professor Aoife Foley is chair in Net Zero Infrastructure at the University of Manchester. She has written for the Irish Examiner recently on how the Government can support consumers and businesses through this crisis – without damaging the economy.

While she favours targeted energy supports for at-risk households and the farming, pharma and transport sectors, she believes that universal payments such as those given during the Ukraine energy crisis would be disastrous for the economy.

“It needs to be very, very targeted. It can't be the blanket approach because they need to look at the checks and balances. And that's the key thing - the other thing as well is we really need to focus on onshore and what we can do onshore."

She says Ireland must now prioritise onshore wind, repowering ageing wind infrastructure, and conduct an inventory of all gas and oil industry stocks and stores across all of the UK and Ireland.

Why Ireland’s energy supports are becoming part of the problem

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