Mr. Leo Clancy:

I thank the Senator for the question. On SMEs, it depends on the sector. You could be in a sector that involves high energy use. On the news this morning, we heard about a retailer experiencing difficulty. There is a lot of difficulty out there and we are conscious of that. It depends on what your business is. If you are in an energy-intensive business it is extremely challenging. SMEs are responding in a number of ways.

TBESS, which Revenue is working on, will be a significant support for many SMEs at the level of €10,000 per month. We think that it will broadly help a lot of SMEs. It is where companies activities are more energy-intensive and where they have larger energy bills that the difficulties arise. We are hearing responses from SMEs in that regard and in terms of trying to seek price increases, where possible, looking for other inefficiencies within their businesses and seeing if they can operate more cleverly. However, price is the main lever SMEs have at the moment. Many companies have been able so far to get price increases that have helped them, but with current energy prices that will become more challenging. We think there will be significant interest in using either TBESS or the Ukraine enterprise crisis scheme in order to respond.

We also see many SMEs reacting by making energy efficiency investments in their businesses. I have spoken to a lot of companies that are planning solar panel deployments, even in the next six or nine months. That is a trend. It has surprised me that so many companies have plans already in place, but a corollary of high energy prices is that the returns on efficiency investments become much easier to realise when one faces those prices.

Long-term sustainability was the core of Senator Crowe's question. In that context, we do not know. That is the honest answer because we do not know what the future trajectory of energy prices will be. The hardest thing for SMEs at the moment is estimating what their 2023 bills will be in the context of the uncertainty out there.