Irish motorists’ anger set to be fuelled by all-time high petrol prices

As if the weather didn’t give us enough to complain about this summer, petrol and diesel prices are set to reach an all-time high next week. Ugh.

Timed perfectly to coincide with the start of school runs all over the country, the global demand for fuel worldwide is set to result in the price of fuel skyrocketing to an all-time high in Ireland next week, with a litre of petrol, for example, set to cost approximately €1.70.

Speaking to Mariane Finucane on RTE radio this morning, ubiquitous AA representative Conor Faughnan blamed “super-taxes” for the high cost of motor fuel in this country and predicted “very significant price rises” over the next few weeks.

“A tax-free litre of petrol would cost somewhere between 75 and 80 cent a litre,” he said and pointed out that other factors such as oil barrel prices and currency fluctuations “really only affect a portion of the pump price – the great wedge is tax.”

“If you’ve got super-taxes, and rising oil prices, and a fall in the euro, it’s that combination that is likely to see us paying €1.70 a litre,” Faughnan said.

The phrase 'On yer bike' might be most often used as an insult, but it's probably a quite appropriate piece of advice for Irish motorists over the next few weeks.