Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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5. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the measures that he intends to introduce in order to help businesses deal with the cost of energy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45076/22]

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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10. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his plans to assist businesses across the country that are being hit with exceptionally high running costs due to the energy crisis; if the Government will be introducing support schemes similar to those introduced during Covid to ensure that businesses are not forced to close their doors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45053/22]

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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11. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the supports that are currently in place for businesses struggling to pay energy bills. [45087/22]

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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18. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if his attention has been drawn to the increased pressure that the increased cost of energy is putting on smaller local businesses such as shops and hospitality; his plans to support same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45074/22]

Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I want to ask the Minister the measures that he intends to introduce in order to help businesses deal with the cost of energy.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Gannon is here to deal with Deputy Catherine Murphy’s question, which is similar to these questions, so perhaps he wants to come in on this. I have no objection to that.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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He can certainly come in on it. We will check in regard to Deputy Catherine Murphy’s question.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 5, 10, 11 and 18 together.

I think it is fair to say that the Government has not been found wanting when it has come to helping businesses get through difficult periods and saving the jobs of people who work in those businesses. The multibillion euro financial assistance provided by Government during the pandemic was unprecedented, whether it was help with businesses' wage bills so they could keep staff on, their overheads, the introduction of cheaper, easier ways to restructure and survive, the small companies administrative rescue process, or SCARP, scheme, the commercial rates waiver or the reduction in VAT for the hospitality and retail sectors.

I am conscious of how worried businesses are as we go into the winter and they see the high energy bills. Putin's invasion of Ukraine has had massive consequences for the whole of Europe, not just Ireland. Indeed, we are now facing a global inflation crisis. We are working on new proposals to help businesses with rapidly rising energy prices and I expect to be in a position to make a positive announcement about that on budget day. We will be looking to raise awareness around energy efficiency, helping businesses reduce the amount of energy they use in the first place and improving take-up of the approximately 20 existing schemes that we already have in place for business to help them reduce their energy costs. For example, in June, we announced a new €55 million green transition fund to help businesses move away from fossil fuels and towards more sustainable alternatives, which, increasingly, are cheaper alternatives as well.

Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Tánaiste. I get a huge number of contacts from companies, firms and retailers in County Clare in regard to the cost of energy and the impact it is having on their business, their ability to trade and their ability to retain employees. We are seeing a doubling and a trebling of costs. It is not before time that a significant package is put in place to help these traders.

The Tánaiste mentioned a €55 million green transition fund. That is very welcome but the retail sector is not eligible for that. I would ask that strong consideration be given to amending that and allowing retailers into that particular scheme. I would also encourage the Tánaiste to look at introducing a grant scheme for accelerated capital allowances to enable retailers in particular to upgrade their refrigeration so they are more efficient. The Tánaiste might come back to me on that.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I agree with Deputy Carey. I welcome the action that the Minister and the Government have taken in regard to Covid, which was praised universally. We need to be in a position to praise a new dynamic response, which the Minister appears to be promising right now.

This is having an effect right across my county and my constituency. I know of a company that has 140 employees whose bill has gone from €15,000 to €50,000 per month. I know of a well-established Drogheda company whose electricity bill has gone from €10,000 to €25,000 per month. There is a food hall in Dundalk which is 38 years in business and its bill has gone from €3,674 to €9,000 per month. It is unsustainable and they will not be able to meet the increasing cost. They are looking at reducing workers’ hours, lay-offs, increases in prices, closing temporarily and, in the case of manufacture, possibly moving to another jurisdiction.

I believe that all and every opportunity must be grasped in regard to all other possible supports, like reducing other taxes that may be on these companies and subsidising wages if there is a proven bill and there is now an excess on that. There might be other ways of finding supports for companies other than what is happening right now. It is unsustainable for these businesses.

We are inundated with calls. I appreciate and acknowledge the Tánaiste's concern.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Go raibh maith agat, a Theachta.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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We lost 50 jobs in Premier Periclase in Drogheda due to the rise in energy prices. The Tánaiste did his best. It was down to world prices and issues, as he addressed.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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Like householders, businesses are seeing a dramatic increase in their energy bills. Owners of supermarkets, hotels, restaurants and many other businesses locally have been highlighting to me the threefold increase they are seeing in their electricity and gas bills. It is just not sustainable for them. Not alone is it wiping out any profit but it is costing them to open the door and do business. Many of them have already taken a number of different steps, including reducing their energy costs by changing fridges, for example, reducing opening hours and closing their deli counter. That is having a knock-on effect on staff and their income, putting them under further pressure. The cost of installing any new energy-efficient equipment will put huge pressure on businesses as well. There will need to be support for them to do that.

I remind the Tánaiste that many of these retailers worked through the pandemic. Local businesses are an important part of the fabric of a community. They provide the first job for many people and they sponsor community groups and others. It is essential that they are kept operating.

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for accommodating me. I had a meeting yesterday with a group of business owners in the city centre. They painted a very bleak picture of what trading may look like there. With the rise in energy costs and the need for efficiency that will come with it, we will see businesses turning off their lights at earlier hours. The city will become darker and, therefore, less safe, with people choosing not to come into it. Is that being factored into the Government's considerations? What can we do to ensure we keep our city centre bright and vibrant, particularly coming into the festive period, when energy demands will soar?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputies for their questions. As we all appreciate, businesses are going to be affected in very different ways. Some businesses are very energy-intense; for others, labour costs outweigh energy costs many times over. Some have been able to recover their costs, often through price increases, which are unwelcome. Some businesses are very profitable and will simply face lower profits, while others are barely profitable at all and face being pushed from profit into loss. That is a very serious situation indeed. When it comes to retail, I think the big impact there is because of refrigeration and the enormous cost of running fridges.

The Minister of State, Deputy English, and I will examine the proposal by Deputies Carey and O'Dowd to extend the green transition fund to retail and the issue of accelerated capital allowances. However, we all appreciate that doing that kind of work will pay back at some point in the future, but it is not going to get businesses through the winter period. Therefore, we are working on a number of schemes we think will help businesses. One is a low-cost, low-interest loan, similar to what we had in place for Brexit and the Covid pandemic. The second is a grant scheme, in essence, which already has state aid approval from the European Commission and will be targeted at manufacturers and exporters with high energy bills. In addition to that, we need a broader measure that will help SMEs, particularly in hospitality and retail, which are facing very high costs.

It is going to be a real challenge. I have seen some extreme examples of bills going up when people have come off contracts or they are with a discount supplier. It is typical now to see bills trebling; not doubling, but trebling. That is quite typical and it is a huge increase in electricity and gas bills for businesses. I would love to be able to say the Government is going to be in a position to pay those bills or pay two thirds of those bills indefinitely, but I cannot say that and I cannot promise that. What I can say is that we will help and it will be a significant and meaningful intervention. We hope to have that in place for budget day.

I share Deputy Gannon's concerns. If our towns and cities, including Dublin city centre, are darker, they will be less safe. Of course, nobody is talking about turning down the streetlights, which will remain on as they are now, but the general streetscape is illuminated by lights in shops, businesses and public buildings. We need to be careful about that in terms of our messaging around it. While we are encouraging people to use less energy, we do not want to make our streets less safe. That is something I am very concerned about too. Luckily, most lighting, particularly LED lighting, does not use up a huge amount of electricity. It does use electricity but nothing like the electricity that is used for heating things up or cooling things down. We need to get that balance right.

Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Tánaiste for agreeing to look at the proposal for accelerated capital allowances for retailers, in particular, to upgrade refrigeration units. I very much welcome that. There is a need for an immediate response for both the short and long term because this issue will not go away any time soon.

There is a chance for some premises to install solar panels on their roofs and get energy supply into their units, but they are being prevented from selling that electricity back to the grid. We need to cut up the red tape that prevents them from doing so. Will the Tánaiste look at proposals in that regard?

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Tánaiste's reply. In the case of manufacturing industry in my county, this is a very significant issue if a company has 140 workers and is considering lay-offs. It cannot increases its costs because it is tied into contracts internationally. The problem is that if people are laid off, they will be making claims on the State by way of supports. It is terribly important to try to add in those supports now and keep people at work if at all possible. There is not one formula to fit all the problems but I go back to what the Government did during the Covid period. The opportunity is there to do now what it did then. I know these are different problems and would involve different schemes and opportunities, but the Government must tackle this. People have confidence because it did it in the past. We need to prove our capacity as a Government and a State to respond to this dreadful international crisis. It was not caused by the Government but we must attempt to solve it. We must pull out all the stops on this.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Tánaiste for his response and overview. I draw his attention to the hospitality sector. Often, when money is tight, eating out and staying somewhere overnight are things people will tighten up on as early as possible. Those businesses will possibly see a dramatic drop-off in their income. They are going to be pushed from both sides because many of their costs will remain high even if their restaurant or other facility is only half full or two thirds full. They will still have to run the same demand on fridges, heating, lighting, staff and so on. Will there be particular measures for businesses that are going to be hit from both sides? Will the Tánaiste give an outline of the scale of supports and whether those measures will be in the form of direct supports to enable such businesses to continue to operate? They are essential businesses in that they are providing jobs for people locally, including, in many cases, the first job for students and younger employees. It is essential that we keep them operating.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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We could be facing economic carnage. We have all heard from the owners of small businesses and industries. We need to deal with the cost of energy at both a domestic and international level, where we can do so, but we will also have to look at grant schemes. I refer to Suretank in Dunleer and Castlebellingham. To lay it out cleanly, the company is looking at its cost of €15,000 per month for electricity going to €50,500, and gas going from €3,200 per month to €18,000 per month. It is saying this will mean all its profits are gone and it will be out of action in a number of months. Anglo Printers in Drogheda is looking at its electricity bill going from €160,000 per year to half a million euro, which is an approximate cost of €10,000 per worker. As I said, it is absolute carnage. We need to act as quickly as possible, as was done during the Covid period to keep the ship afloat. I accept this is an issue that is happening across Europe, but we need to deal with it domestically and internationally. We have no choice.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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This is a very real issue and I am delighted it is being discussed. I met with members of the Irish Hotels Federation, IHF, in my county recently. While they prepare monthly accounts, many smaller businesses in the hospitality sector, such as coffee shops and cafés, only prepare annual accounts. It will only be in October they will get the real shock factor. The costs of utility bills are spiralling through the roof. We must do everything possible to ensure, just as we did during the Covid-19 pandemic, that these businesses stay afloat. They are part of the fabric of Ireland, part of the employment sector and significant employers in the economy. Outside of greater Dublin, the tourism and hospitality sector is the greatest employer in the west. Therefore, I ask that everything possible be done in this context in the lead-up to the budget.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputies for their questions and their advocacy on behalf of small businesses and the retail and hospitality industry in their constituencies. I agree a response of scale is required. I cannot put a figure on that now. It may not be possible to put a figure on it, because we just do not know how long this situation will continue. We probably will be able to put a figure on it for this year, but I am not sure about next year. That will depend on how things develop. The objective, however, is clear: it is to protect viable but vulnerable businesses from failing and to protect the jobs of the people who work in those businesses. There must be an adequate response, because if there is not such a response, then there is no point in having a response at all. I would rather spend enough and achieve what I want to achieve than spend a lot and not achieve what we need to achieve. This is going to be our guiding principle.

This is a very different crisis from Covid-19. When the virus arrived in Ireland, we were talking about somewhere between 20,000 and 80,000 deaths if we did not act the way we did. The response to the Covid-19 pandemic, of course, was not just about providing money to people and businesses; it was also about taking away people's freedoms. This is a very different crisis. We will not be doing things like that, for example. It is, though, comparable in some ways. It is comparable in respect of the anxiety and fear people have when it comes to being able to pay the bills. It is also comparable in respect of the uncertainty, because people just do not know how bad this crisis will be or how long it is going to go on. This is why it does require a comparable response.