Mr. Svein Gjedrem:

The Norwegian Government is, like Ireland, trying to develop a wind energy industry at sea, and also on land, but there are protests against onshore investments, so they are looking for offshore investments. The Government is willing to subsidise those investments. There is no economic rent as yet in these investments. They are costly and there is a need for subsidies.

Those subsidies are financed over the fiscal budget like other expenditures. They are not financed by the oil plant itself. Of course, Norwegian companies want to invest in wind in both Ireland and Norway, and they try to earn money on that, but, as yet, there is no economic rent. There is an economic rent in energy production from our waterfalls, on hydro-energy, and that is taxed in the same way as the oil companies in our case by the government saying that the return over and above normal return is owned by the people and by the government.