The Spark #027: The Excise Reprieve Is Signed and the Summer That Cooked Irish Homes

Welcome to Issue #27. The excise reprieve is signed and sealed: the Dáil came back for ninety minutes on Friday and voted it through, so the diesel you bought on Monday cost the same as the diesel you bought last week. The bigger read this week is about the summer we just had, and the half a million people whose homes could not cope with it, because there is a genuine new line of work in that story. Storm season also opened on Tuesday with a fresh list of names, which makes it the right week to talk emergency lighting.

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📰 Industry News

The Excise Reprieve Is Signed: Cuts Stay Until the End of October

The Dáil was recalled for a single ninety-minute sitting on Friday and passed the financial resolution by 104 votes to 49. The September and October excise increases are formally gone, and the full cuts, worth 27 cent a litre on petrol and 32 cent on diesel at the pump, now stay in place until the end of October. The Tánaiste called it a "significant intervention"; the deferral costs the exchequer around €430 million.

The new plan is a four-step restoration running monthly from November 1st to the end of February 2027. The exact size of each step will be confirmed closer to the time, and the Government has left itself room to defer again if the international picture stays ugly. Sinn Féin opposed the resolution on the grounds that the restoration should be pushed out further still.

What it means for you: Monday came and went with no tax jump at the pumps, so the van costs you built into September quotes are safe. Keep a light touch on anything running past November 1st: the steps are coming back in some form, and a one-line fuel clause on winter jobs is still cheap insurance. We will print the confirmed step amounts the week they are published.

The Summer That Cooked Irish Homes: One in Ten at Overheating Risk

Now that the summer is over, the report card makes serious reading. Five separate hot spells, 31 degrees reached as early as May, the driest July on record with absolute drought at 20 weather stations, and two official Met Éireann heatwaves. Research from TU Dublin puts the consequence in one number: up to 10 per cent of Ireland's housing stock is at risk of overheating, which is more than half a million people sweltering in homes that cannot shed heat.

The detail that matters for the trade: the worst affected are not old draughty cottages. They are middle and upper floor apartments, some new-estate semi-detached houses, and, awkwardly, A-rated homes. As TU Dublin's Mark Mulville put it, they are "designed to retain heat for winter and aren't designed for the heat we're getting this summer." The Department of Housing is now preparing its own overheating report using more extreme future weather files, and one committee member has already said Ireland needs "to start thinking about air conditioning" as a "necessary evil". For scale: a quarter of French homes already have it.

What it means for you: This is what a new market looks like the year before it arrives, and it is worth positioning for now. Air-to-air heat pump units, the split systems that cool in summer and heat in winter, are the likely Irish answer, and every single install needs an electrician: a dedicated radial circuit, an outdoor IP-rated isolator, RCBO protection at the board, and often a board tidy-up while you are in there. If you build a relationship with an F-gas registered installer this winter, you are the wiring half of every job they land next summer. In the meantime, the overheating conversation belongs in every attic conversion and retrofit quote: ventilation, shading and a circuit run for future cooling cost buttons at first fix and a fortune afterwards. The cable, isolators and switchgear side of all of it is available in-store at Greenogue, ring 01 401 9907 for trade pricing.

⚖️ Watch List: Copper's Record Squeeze, the PMI Bright Spot and the Repeats

Copper. Third week in this slot and it keeps earning it: London copper is reported at fresh records near $14,500 a tonne, with the premium for immediate delivery at a five-year high, the classic sign that physical metal is scarce. Warehouse stocks keep draining. Nothing about this says cheaper cable, so the advice stands: order what the autumn book needs now, quote cable-heavy jobs with short validity, and ring the counter for today's price rather than pricing off last month's invoice.

The bright spot. The AIB Manufacturing PMI for August came in at 55.4, with new orders growing at their fastest in four and a half years and Ireland comfortably ahead of the euro zone. Factory investment feeds industrial and commercial electrical work with a lag, so this is a good leading sign for the winter tender lists. The August construction PMI lands mid-month and we will cover it when it does.

Apprentice repeats. The SOLAS Phase 4 and 6 repeat exams run this month, no fees for affected apprentices. The independent review promised for end of July has still not been published, so there is nothing new to report on the outcome. If your apprentice has a date, lock in the release time now. Queries: 1800 794 487 or apprenticeship@solas.ie.

🌿 Storm Season Opened Tuesday: Meet Austen, Boelo and Chloe

The 2026/27 storm naming season started on Tuesday, and Met Éireann, the UK Met Office and the Dutch KNMI have published the new list: Austen leads it off, followed by Boelo, Chloe, Dano, Evelyn and sixteen more. There is a nice bit of history in there for Met Éireann's 90th year, with several names honouring its own people, including Austen Nagle, its first director back in 1936. Last season brought five named storms, and Storm Amy gusted 148 km/h at Malin Head.

For the trade, storm season is callout season, and the contractors who have a good autumn are the ones set up for it before the first name gets used:

1. Stock the van for the common callouts now. RCBOs and MCBs in the common ratings, a couple of pendant sets and lampholders, weatherproof junction boxes, glands and a roll of Twin and Earth. The counter can make you up a storm box, ring ahead and it is ready for collection.
2. Warn your commercial and landlord customers about emergency lighting now. A power cut is when non-functional emergency fittings get noticed, and October is compliance season anyway. An autumn test-and-replace visit sold in September beats a panicked call in November.
3. Decide your callout rate before the phone rings. Evening and weekend storm callouts priced on the spot get underpriced. Set the rate, tell your regulars, put it in the voicemail greeting.

🔦 Product Spotlight: Emergency Lighting

With storm season open and the October compliance season around the corner, this is the week for our emergency lights range: maintained and non-maintained fittings, twin-spots, and emergency bulkheads for stairwells, corridors and exit routes across landlord, retail and light commercial work.

• Landlord and apartment work: communal escape routes are where I.S. 3217 compliance meets a fitting that has quietly died since the last inspection. An autumn sweep of your managed properties is easy booked work.
• Retail and hospitality: pre-Christmas fit-outs should have the emergency layer specced as its own line, not folded into the general lighting.
• The storm-season sell: a rechargeable emergency lamp that doubles as a work light belongs in every van and every farmhouse kitchen drawer from October on.

Pair the emergency layer with our floodlights for yards and approaches, and see the wider lighting range for the general side of any fit-out.

Trade pricing: Website prices are retail. On a block's worth of emergency bulkheads or a fit-out's worth of twin-spots, ring the counter on 01 401 9907 or email sales@shamrockelectrical.ie with the schedule and we'll price it properly. Consumer units, MCBs, RCBOs and switchgear remain available in-store at Greenogue.

💡 Contractor Tip of the Week: Never Lose a Cert Again

Certificate management is nobody's favourite subject until a landlord rings looking for a cert from 2023, an ESSB audit is due, or a house sale stalls waiting on paperwork. Six habits that take the pain out of it:

1. One system, not three. Portal, phone photos and a folder in the van is how certs get lost. Pick one master location, a cloud drive you pay for, and everything lands there.
2. File it the day you issue it. The cert is not finished when it is signed, it is finished when the PDF is saved and sent. Make it the last step of every job, same as sweeping the floor.
3. Name them so future-you can search. Date, address, cert type: "2026-09-02 14 Oak Drive Completion Cert". Six months from now that is findable in five seconds.
4. Send the customer their copy in writing, every time. An email trail proves you issued it, and half the "lost cert" phone calls end with the customer finding your original email.
5. Keep the test results with the cert. The schedule of test results answers the questions an engineer or auditor actually asks. Scan the instrument printout or field sheet into the same folder.
6. Do a twenty-minute audit each quarter. Sort by date, look for gaps against your invoicing, chase the strays while the jobs are still fresh. Four times a year keeps the ESSB visit boring, and boring is the goal.

📅 Dates to Know

• This month: SOLAS Phase 4 and 6 repeat exams. Confirm your apprentice's date and release time.
• Monday September 14th: Pinergy electricity prices up 7.6 per cent.
• Tuesday September 15th to Thursday 17th: National Ploughing Championships, Screggan, Co. Offaly.
• Mid-September: August Construction PMI and CSO planning permissions due.
• Thursday October 1st: CRU network charges up €41.25 a year on every bill.
• Tuesday October 6th: Budget 2027.
• Sunday October 25th: Clocks go back.
• Saturday October 31st: Fuel excise cuts now expire, with restoration in monthly steps from November 1st.
• Every Wednesday: The Spark lands in your inbox.

That's it for this week. Get the storm box made up before Austen shows up, book the emergency lighting sweeps for October, and have a think about who your F-gas partner is going to be, because next summer is coming whether the houses are ready or not. Trade counter is open Monday to Friday 7am to 5pm and Saturday 9am to 1pm.

The Shamrock Electrical Team
Greenogue Business Park, Rathcoole, Co. Dublin
01 401 9907 | sales@shamrockelectrical.ie

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📖 Previous Issues

• Issue 026: September's fuel excise hikes scrapped, Dublin's 80,000 home pipeline, wall lanterns and the Fumagalli range
• Issue 025: The eclipse rattles the grid, construction PMI back to growth, copper near record, schools are back
• Issue 024: Diesel up 19 cent, the excise schedule, wind power dumped by the grid, bulkhead lights
• Issue 023: New opening hours, construction output figures, periodic inspection paperwork, wall lights

About Shamrock Electrical Supplies

Shamrock Electrical Supplies is an electrical wholesaler and retailer based in Greenogue Business Park, Rathcoole, Co. Dublin. We supply professional electrical contractors and homeowners across Ireland.

Contractors who open a trade account get competitive trade pricing, reliable stock availability, and a team that knows what they are talking about.

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Shamrock Electrical Supplies
Unit 22, Block 613, Jordanstown Road
Greenogue Business Park
Rathcoole, Co. Dublin, D24 TX98

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Monday to Friday: 7am to 5pm
Saturday: 9am to 1pm
Sunday: Closed

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📞 01 401 9907
✉️ sales@shamrockelectrical.ie
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