Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Has the Minister ruled out a windfall tax in his discussions with the Minister for Finance? Deputy Ryan is the Minister with responsibility for energy. It is interesting that the €200 energy credit was very poorly targeted. I think everybody will agree with that. However, that did not cost the energy companies a red cent. That was derived from borrowing and tax revenue. The ESB, a citizen-owned company, posted €670 million in pretax profits and is paying a €126 million dividend to the Exchequer. It could be paying more and I think the Minister should demand that it pays more. The Irish arm of the company that operates the Corrib gas field, Vermillion Energy Ireland, posted more than Canadian $1 billion in pretax profits last year. Do not let it off the hook, it needs to be in the sights of this Government. We cannot and should not rule out the prospect of a windfall tax on what are hyper-normal profits being posted by the energy companies. I repeat what I said earlier, it is absolutely perverse when people across this country are struggling to make ends meet, when we will have more people in energy poverty this year than we had last year, that these companies are making super-normal profits on the back of this crisis.

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