Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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In costing any initiative, of course, one will have to make assumptions. That is what the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications did. It looked at the data. Recent data show less that 1% of businesses have bills in excess of €35,000. That is the evidence on which the Department would have relied in developing a costing of the TBESS scheme throughout last year. Of course, nobody can predict the actual costs the businesses will incur, but the evidence is the budget available for this scheme, currently, is significantly in excess of the actual claim and drawdown. The suggestion that it could have cost many multiples of the budget the Government has provided for the scheme is not credible.