Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It was a combination. A lot of money was put aside. It was an overshoot in many ways in the context of the demand. In addition, many businesses had hedged, purchased ahead and, therefore, did not qualify for TBESS. Some very small businesses in particular felt there was probably too much form-filling around it and they would have to take on an accountant to do it. Many of them did not want to have to do that because the returns would not have been significant enough. There was a combination of a lot of reasons. We discussed that at this committee previously and I am happy to do so again. However, we still spent more than €150 million helping businesses to pay their energy costs. That also puts the ICOB package in context. We will spend almost twice what was spent on TBESS in supporting businesses this year, without a long application process, where businesses will get payments in the first quarter of this year, but TBESS, over a much longer period, resulted in us supporting businesses to the tune of approximately €150 million.