Mr. Evan Walker:

I will take the second question first on where we stand with leaving a lot of 2022 behind. I will then walk the Deputy through the estimates. Full disclosure: it was my estimates that were originally so high and are now lower. It again goes back to the consideration of all options. I have been assigned to this from the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service for I think a year now. The first discussions on a windfall tax took place last April. All options were considered. Italy imposed a windfall tax and it was a similar structure to what is now being done on the TSC. At the time Portugal, Spain and Italy had moved on a windfall tax. There was no consensus in Ireland that a domestic policy for windfall tax was appropriate, or would be effective or efficient. While options were considered on how this could be dealt with in a domestic sense, it was clear that once those options were considered - they are considered in the cost-benefit analysis and the RIA - the optimal solution or preference would be a European solution. Once we had the European solution, this is what the European solution is and this is what I need to work with. It is not for me to comment on the European Commission's policy as to whether it should go back further. It is for me to say that this is what the policy and stated objective are and to work to implement it. There is no doubt that in quantifiable terms, the highest prices and the highest volatility in the market were seen between April 2022 and August 2022.

This leads me nicely to the point of the estimates. Hindsight is great in that we have come down from those. There was not clear view at the time that prices would fall as significantly as they have which would lower the take based on the market cap between December and now. When we were looking at these in September and October, we got to the €1.9 billion estimate - I have put it in the briefing - based on the trajectory of the futures. The future prices in September were forecasting that by February UK gas prices would be up at more than 400 pence per therm. They were actually about 147 pence per therm. At the time, in October, it was very unclear. We could not have forecast that there would be a fourfold reduction in prices.

We had to model that with a scenario analysis. When dealing with such high levels of uncertainty it is technically appropriate to model the scenarios. We say that this scenario could be that these future prices will hold, but there is also a scenario where these future prices will seriously abate and that is why there was such a wide range. There was a clear case that the war might be over, but who knows? In that case there would be a very low scenario with a minimal take or these future prices that were forecast in September and October at more than 400 pence per therm could have held and we would have ended up with €1.9 billion. Thankfully, the prices have fallen and that is a good thing. However, that also means that the revenue-collection aspect of this will also fall. We have always said that as prices fall it would lead to a lower take. That should not be considered as having missed and that it is terrible not to have a good take. Ultimately, lower prices are good. It goes back to the objective, which is trying to capture the windfalls. If prices fall, there should be less windfalls there.