Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I echo what others have said and wish everybody a Lá Fhéile Bríde sona. It is very welcome that we are now going to celebrate St. Brigid who was a powerful feminist who challenged the status quo, respected the environment and wildlife, established leading community movements and, I believe, inspired Grace O'Malley, Maud Gonne, Brigitte Bardot and suffrages all over the world. It is welcome that we recognise her today with a bank holiday.

I also raise something most Senators would not have failed to notice, which is that households will now be getting €50 back in their electricity bill thanks to the work I have been doing in my office with Brian Marron in trying to chase up how it came about that households were subsidising large energy users - very profitable companies - and were doing so for 12 years. Through the freedom of information, FOI, documents we received, it was clear the recession was used as the excuse. It was going to save jobs in these large industries. At a time when households were on their knees and people were in mortgage arrears, their electricity bills were going to increase to subsidise these large energy users. It was clear in the Cabinet memorandum that this was something for which the industry had been lobbying for a long time. It was not due to the recession. It was a lobby request of large energy users of profitable companies and the Government at the time capitulated and instructed the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to introduce that subsidy. The question is, why was it allowed to continue for 12 years, long after the financial crash was gone. At a time where we have had a cost-of-living crisis for two years, it was allowed to continue. It is news to everybody because it is not very clear on one's bill that we were subsidising those profitable companies. Now we are going to get €50 back which is very welcome and is money back in people's pockets. Nobody is denying that but that is only the error in the calculation of that subsidy; it is not the entirety of the subsidy at all because that figure would be up in the hundreds of euro for households if we were to return what we have been taking from them to subsidise these large energy companies.

We need to hear from the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, on this issue. In the first instance, this is because he said in the Dáil that he had instructed CRU to unwind this subsidy when in fact, the CRU carried out that analysis and informed the Government it was going to do it. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment complained about how it was going against a ministerial direction by unwinding it. Consequently, we need to get to the truth here. Did the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, instruct the CRU to unwind the subsidy or, as the CRU has said, did it decide to unwind it only for the Department of the then Minister, the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, to complain about the unwinding?