Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank both Deputies for raising this important question. Deputy Conway-Walsh will be aware I have a strong interest in Mayo, with significant family connections and family businesses there. I have a good understanding of the pressures faced right across Mayo and other parts of rural Ireland. Indeed, her constituency colleague, Deputy Dillon, also raised this with the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, on Question Time earlier.

l will cut to the chase on the reasons for it because that is what the Deputies specifically raised, and we can provide further detail. The difficulty with this is that many of these businesses would have received broad supports through the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, and a range of different supports during Covid. As a result, there is no intention whatsoever to exclude businesses of any particular geographical position or type.

On the issue of oil and LPG being excluded from the scheme, this was because they were not supplied by way of a meter. Revenue and the Department of Finance pointed out at the time the scheme was devised that it would be difficult to accurately determine the actual usage for each claim period, the relevant unit price for each claim period, and the actual increase in that unit price and usage over the same time frame in the reference period.

As her party's spokesperson on public expenditure, Deputy Mairéad Farrell will be particularly concerned about how schemes are structured and making sure they can be captured in a way that Revenue can accurately assess what is being done. As she knows, the scheme opened generally for registration at the end of November and for claims on 5 December. There are €12 million worth of claims of which close to €11 million have been paid out. It is still early days in the taking up of the scheme but that does not address the Deputy's point about businesses using oil and LPG as energy sources.

TBESS is available to all tax-compliant businesses carrying on trade, the profits of which are chargeable to tax under case I or case II of Schedule D. It also applies to sporting bodies and charities that carry out trading activities. There is no intention to exclude businesses or services; it is simply a matter of how that is recorded. The Minister stated earlier that the scheme is due to end at the end of February 2023. There is provision under sections 100 to 102 of the Finance Act to extend it to the end of April and to consider the caps. The Minister indicated that he would look at the operation of TBESS for the first three months, as the Department of Finance and the Government did in respect of other schemes that were designed to provided supports through difficult periods.

I will set out the facts for the House more broadly. To be eligible to make a claim under TBESS a business must demonstrate that the average unit price for electricity or gas, as the case may be, on the relevant bill has increased by 50% or more compared to the average unit price in the reference period. It is tightly analysed and assessed in order to make that comparison. In broad terms, it is the average unit price in the month that is 12 months prior to the month in which the relevant bill arises. That is the energy cost threshold.

I hear what both Deputies are saying with regard to whether we can do something more, or if we can we work on this. I urge them to contribute to the review and provide specific ideas, during the revision or the devising of any new scheme, on the specific problem of measuring the use, the actual cost and the change over time in circumstances where one is dealing with something that is not metered in the course of ordinary business.

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