Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I think the biggest con job that has ever been played on people is that neoliberalism convinced them that if we sold all of our State-owned infrastructure and energy companies, it would lead to competition and lower prices and things would be cheaper. I think we know from our experience that that is a complete and utter con job. Imagine what we would have had had we not sold them out. Looking at Norway, there are trillions in its sovereign wealth fund that are at the behest and support of the people. We sold Telecom Éireann. Its assets were stripped and it was left as a shell. ESB was opened up to competition and Bord Gáis the same. Our bin services were opened up to competition. All of that was cheerled by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and, in some councils, by the Labour Party. Costs have skyrocketed. Over recent weeks the cost of our brown bins has skyrocketed. I keep repeating this. We were told lies in Fingal County Council. We were told that we would only pay for what we threw away. What do we see in these energy companies? We see massive profits in the range of billions. CEO pay is many multiples of that of workers. In fact, CEOs were paid 399 times more than a typical worker in 2012. Since 1978, CEO pay has rocketed by 1,460%.

In relation to this Bill, we are 12 months down the line and it is clear the Government has acted in any way but urgently. The truth is the Government never wanted this Bill in the first place. In May 2022, the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, said, "A windfall tax on profits by Irish energy companies would undermine investment and Ireland's bid to become energy independent." Looking at energy poverty, household energy costs have more than doubled in the past two years, with the average home paying €2,000 a year for electricity alone. The situation is unsustainable. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul reported last year that there was a 40% increase in requests related to energy. We get such requests in our offices consistently. People are desperate when they get bills of €800 and €500 for their gas and electricity, respectively.

What do we need to do? We need to go further with this legislation and increase the amount of profits that can be considered taxable. We must make the legislation more robust in respect of avoidance. We will table an amendment to introduce clear guidelines on how the revenue should be spent and ensure moneys raised must be used to reduce the price of electricity for households.

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