Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister's response will be cold comfort to struggling families across the country. We need political leadership on this. The best way the energy companies can help consumers is by Government slapping a windfall tax on the hyper-normal profits of energy companies. It is perverse that there is evidence of massive profit-taking going on at this time when customers are really struggling to make ends meet.

The Minister met the EU Commissioner for energy today and knows that the European Commission has given the green light to EU member states to introduce a windfall tax, if that policy decision is taken, on the super-normal profits of energy companies. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, said in a parliamentary question reply to me in April that his Department was considering such a move and he referenced the fact that the officials of the Minister, Deputy Ryan, were engaged in that work as well. The line at this stage seems to have gone cold. That is not good enough. Italy slapped a 25% tax on energy utilities and Spain similarly. The Tory government in the UK overcame its opposition to a windfall tax on the super-normal profits of energy companies and introduced such a tax last week. Based on the figures the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, has, we could raise €60 million in windfall tax on energy companies to bring 65,000 additional households into the fuel allowance net. That would be a very important move. Notwithstanding what the Minister says about the responsibility of the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, we need the kind of political leadership that was shown in Italy and Spain.

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