Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

We did not set out specific measures in the submission because we had hoped that this issue would have been addressed by now, to be honest. We have been working with the Government, in particular with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, for a number of months. What we are seeing taking shape is measures within the state-aid approval framework. Our concern is that those measures will predominantly support exporting companies. Those companies clearly need that support and that will take the form of grant aid, low-cost finance loans and a mix of the types of measures used during both the Covid-19 crisis and also during the last financial crisis. We are dusting down some of the tools that worked back then. We can see that package taking shape and it is going to be within the EU state-aid framework. We have seen an indicative amount for that but we think we will need to go well beyond that. To give the Deputy a sense of the quantum, Irish business has been paying in the region of €3 billion to €4 billion in energy costs in recent years but that is now heading towards €10 billion plus at the aggregate level. For many individual businesses we are looking at a four- to five-fold increase. Our particular concern around the way the policy schemes are currently being designed is that at the moment we do not see supports for indigenous companies, the retail sector, and our non-trading and non-export companies. Many of those businesses, as the Deputy rightly says, will struggle to stay in operation with those types of energy cost increases. We have the bones of a good framework for our exporting sector but we are probably going to need to draw on more of the Covid-type supports for the indigenous sector.