Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

TBESS was a scheme run by Revenue. My Department was used as a vehicle in terms of an estimate through which to run that scheme. However, it was effectively run by the Revenue Commissioners and I think was run reasonably. It was actually not that difficult to get into TBESS. Lots of businesses decided not to do it. Some businesses had hedged against significant increased costs. In the end, there were about 50,000 applications, representing more than 30,000 companies. We would have liked to have seen more applications, but it was still between €130 million and €140 million spent supporting energy costs. As an idea of the scale, by our calculations there are just above 150,000 businesses paying rates in Ireland at the moment. There are just under 140,000 businesses paying rates up to €20,000, so it is the vast majority.

Approximately 143,000 businesses are paying up to €30,000 in rates, which is approximately 96% of all rates-paying businesses. It is not true to say that we are giving €20,000 back to businesses; we are not. What we are saying is that it will be up to 50% of what a business pays in rates this year. What was announced on budget day is that it is up to €20,000 or potentially 50% of that. What we will do in the next couple of weeks is we will finalise the detail of the implementation of it. What I can only confirm today is that we will spend €250 million. It will be paid in the first quarter of next year through local authorities. We are currently finalising at the moment what it would cost to extend the upper threshold somewhat to ensure that it is not the case that a business that is paying €21,000 in rates gets nothing and a business paying €19,000 or 20,000 gets the full whack. We are looking at that. We have been speaking to business organisations and so on to try and get that right. That will be clarified probably in the next ten days. The key here is-----

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