Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Let me finish. The Minister asked me a question so let me finish. We are not talking about Apple versus the corner shop. We are talking about households for a start. The rationale for an upper limit relates to large companies being able to have the State pay multiples of their energy bills. The Minister can shake his head but he outlined to Deputy Boyd Barrett that was one of the rationales for the cap being there. If the cap is there to curtail costs, there is no hiding that the upper limit of these costs is in the region of €30 billion.

I do not want to have this debate with the Minister at this hour of the night. I am just making the point that this year he has extrapolated and cannot be certain about the costs. He said that the costs are approximately €1.2 billion, and that they could be higher and had to continually be reviewed, because the one thing he does not know is where unit prices will go. As I said, the upper limit of this scheme, given that 400,000 businesses are eligible and they can all, potentially, claim up to €60,000, even though that will not happen, means the maths is in the ballpark of €20 billion to €30 billion.