The Labour Party is calling on the Government to introduce a price cap on energy to help households and businesses with rising costs.
As the Irish Examiner reports, Labour leader Ivana Bacik said an emergency response is now required and suggested that existing legislation could be used to limit on the prices people have to pay for energy.
"We believe that the sort of unprecedented price rises we've seen over recent weeks in energy bills for people simply are not sustainable.
"What we want Government to do is to accept in principle that they should be imposing price caps on energy bills to ensure that people would have greater certainty.
"We're seeing huge fear, huge, huge distress at the daily reports of rises by gas and electricity companies," she told RTÉ Radio.
Ms Bacik said price caps have been introduced effectively in other countries such as Spain and Portugal.
The Government is currently exploring a number of options which will be announced on budget day to help ease the pressure on households.
This includes a windfall tax that would be levied on energy companies that record significant profits as well as a number of one-off payments to help families and businesses.
It is expected that a energy rebate, similar to the one provided earlier this year, will be among the supports announced and this would be extended to smaller businesses.
