Households and businesses will get financial support in the Budget to help pay energy bills this winter, the Taoiseach has confirmed.
Leo Varadkar said the Government expects electricity and gas prices to fall, but that will not happen fast enough before next winter.
Speaking after the final Cabinet meeting before the summer break, he said it was "pretty obvious that people will need help" with their energy bills during the winter.
"The basic principle is that there will be help for households and businesses with energy costs, it will be announced in the Budget. It's being done because we don't believe energy prices will have fallen fast enough by then," he said.
The financial support will be funded from the proceeds of the Energy Windfall Tax, the final part of which was agreed by Government today.
"It is a separate pot to the regular budget pot, it is a particular pot being raised for a particular purpose," he said.
The exact details have not been worked out yet but the "easy option" is the energy credit, the Taoiseach believes.
"You can just take it off the bill, it applies to everyone," he said.
The Taoiseach added there would again be recognition that poorer households might need the help more.
There is also a desire within Government to help people "a bit more" with measures to promote energy efficiency, he said.
"We've had about thirty or forty thousand homes retrofitted already this year which is pretty good going... and I see more and more people taking on solar panels, we want businesses and households to do that," Mr Varadkar said.
