Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 9 May 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities

Mr. Jim Gannon:

I will take one or two of those questions and will pass to my colleague, Dr. McGowan, on district heating, if that is okay. In terms of the windfall tax or the IMR cap on revenues, we believe the legislative proposal is a strong one. As it is currently drafted, it should allow us to recoup surplus revenues from the energy companies where they arose and allow the Government to develop policy around how those are redistributed. We have yet to see the detailed outturn of that but we are preparing ourselves internally against what has been passed through this committee and we are confident that we will be able to do that. That may give us further insight into the practices and approaches taken by some of the supply companies within that period, at least in relation to hedging, which will give us some insight into that.