Will the Minister admit that he and the Government have been played for absolute mugs by the major fuel providers in recent days? The financial resolution passed with assent last night by all of us has had zero impact. If Deputies were on a garage forecourt this morning, as I was, they would have seen that not only did prices not go down, but they had actually gone up. When I inquired as to whether the excise cut had been passed on, the person behind the counter told me that the price of Brent crude oil actually went up last night at the same time. That is untrue but it was what that worker was told by his boss to say, which is a very unfair position to put that worker in. Will the Government agree to call an emergency meeting of all the major fuel providers to discuss this issue? Will it examine a true price transparency mechanism for fuel, petrol and diesel? Will it examine whether a cap on fuel prices is needed? Will it look at further cutting public transport fares?

We are not just in daily contact but in morning, afternoon and evening contact with the fuel supply industry because we have a supply issue as well as a price issue that we have to manage and we will be able to do that. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission will look to make sure with a laser focus that all the proper approaches were taken and that there was not price gouging. It is very complicated because different forecourts have different circumstances. The excise duty applies when the fuel leaves the depot, be it in Dublin, Whitegate, Derry, Shannon, or Galway, not when it is sold at the pump. The relevant excise rate varies depending on when the fuel was purchased and the gap in time. It is also complicated because, as I said earlier, the price on the wholesale market, which tends to have a two- or three-day lag from the retail price, went up €22 on Tuesday and came down by a similar amount on Wednesday.