Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It could potentially offer an opportunity to redistribute a little as well, could it not? One of the facts, surprisingly, that people are acknowledging now is that excess profits are being made in certain sectors of the economy, whereas other people are losing out because of rising energy costs. The latter is benefiting energy companies. It is now broadly accepted as an idea that we might even consider the wild left-wing idea of putting more taxes on the profits of these corporations to channel it back to those who are losing out. Such policies would not be fiscally irresponsible in the current situation. One might argue that guaranteeing that those who are less well-off on low and modest incomes do not see losses in real income is money well spent because, by and large, it goes back into the economy whereas excess super profits or a big growth in savings or wealth for the very, very rich do not necessarily feed back into the economy. Is that a reasonable proposition?