Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

What I mean is that I just have actual questions. I would like the answers. I will be as brief as possible and we may even be under the five minutes. I have two questions for the ESRI. Its opening statement mentioned the expansion of the working families payment. I have heard that twice from different groups in different contexts. I think I also heard it from IBEC and from a Fine Gael Deputy. I am interested in how that could be done and how many people it might assist.

According to the last page of the ESRI's opening statement, there is evidence that some energy companies are using greater than expected profits to offset losses on the supply side and that taxing windfall gains in the generation sector may only therefore put some upward pressure on consumer prices. Obviously there is a lot of anger out there. A lot of people are talking about the windfall tax because that is what people want to hear, to be frank. How could a windfall tax be structured in order that it would not have such an impact? Could it be based on the average rate of profit prior to the inflation crisis?