Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It will apply to any business that had an electricity or gas bill last year and can show that the unit cost us gone up by 50% or more. We are looking at the issue of businesses that use oil rather than gas or electricity, and that is particularly the case in businesses in some parts of rural Ireland. Oil has not gone up by as much but it has gone up, so we may need to do something in that space. We are also looking at the issue of businesses that were established in the last couple of months because we do not want to put them at a disadvantage by subsidising the energy bills of their established competitors. There are going to be a lot of issues with this that we will have to iron out. I absolutely have confidence in the Revenue to administer it well but, a bit like the temporary wage subsidy scheme, TWSS, the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, and the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS, we are probably going to have to tweak it a few times before we get it exactly right.

The scheme is not designed to stop companies making profits; it is designed to make sure they can still make profits. The whole point of a business, or a big point of a business, is to break even or make a profit, but it will work like the CRSS, so it is partly recoverable in that sense because it is a taxable payment, unlike the EWSS.