Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Those are exactly the kinds of things we have to take into account when it comes to any scheme, for example, a clawback mechanism to recover money from businesses that received it but did not need it in the end. Many companies paid back money they received through the employment wage subsidy scheme. I am glad we gave it to them because at the time it looked as though they might not succeed. They were able to keep on their staff and make profits during the pandemic, and they gave the money back. It is important that we have clawback arrangements in that regard.

I appreciate that businesses are facing huge energy costs. Two days would not pass that I do not meet someone in business who shows me their bill and tells me all the efforts they have made to reduce their energy costs and, notwithstanding that, the bill is triple what it was only a few months ago. We want to help businesses to move towards more modern ways of providing heat and light, such as using LED lights which cost a lot less. I visited the Iveagh Garden Hotel on Harcourt Street not too long ago where they have a heat pump. It is a massive thing in the basement of an old building. The hotel can have much lower energy costs than the vast majority of hotels that traditionally rely on gas and electricity. However, I understand one cannot install a heat pump in a week or two, or even a few months. We have to help now but also help in the long term.

See this speech in context