Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is welcome. I am taking this Bill on behalf of my colleague, Senator McGahon, who cannot be with us.

I welcome the introduction of the Bill and look forward to it being enacted. The Title to the Bill contains a word with which we can all agree, namely, "solidarity". What we are looking at here is a temporary solidarity tax.

It is clear that the consequences of the war in Ukraine have been felt in many aspects, including with regard to inflation and, of course, the energy costs impacting directly on homeowners, businesses and others. That has caused a significant impact in the context of the cost-of-living challenges that families have and also with regard to the bottom line for businesses. The Government has responded directly in terms of providing recompense through energy supports . It also provided assistance to businesses by means of the temporary business energy support scheme.

What is proposed in the Bill arises on foot of an EU directive. The Government is waiting to see the response from the EU, but it is probable that it would have been able to do something anyway. The UK has done something similar to what is proposed in the EU directive and what certain member states have done. It is clear that this is obviously not just an Irish issue. It is an issue that has had an impact across the European Union and the wider world because of the uncertainties arising from the war in Ukraine and the impact on the movement of fossil fuels.

As I said, the Government responded by providing electricity supports. These were very evident and welcome. There would be some concern with regard to price gouging and falls in wholesale prices being passed on to consumers over the period. There are differences between houses and businesses in terms of how these things are charged. Perhaps that needs to be looked at in the context of savings being passed on to consumers and households as soon as there is an improvement in the wholesale market price.

Smart meters allow people to monitor their electricity usage. We are dealing with a number of cases relating to smart meters where people are concerned that their introduction will lead to a spike or a perceived spike in usage. Going back to dealing with the energy companies, I had assumed that if a person had a heating system, a washing machine and a tumble dryer, the companies would be able to monitor the energy used by each. As I understand it, they determine whether a person has a washing machine or tumble dryer and then estimate a percentage of the overall bill on the basis of that usage. This means that it is not actual usage but an estimate. I did not know that. Maybe everyone else did, but I did not. It is not exactly as beneficial as I would have assumed. People cannot say that it was a fine summer, that they did not use their tumble dryers and that, therefore, this is an actual saving. The companies are making an estimate on the basis of someone having an appliance. I thought that was interesting and wondered whether there is a methodology that can be used to determine the energy used by the relevant appliance. The latter would be much more beneficial.

What is clear to see, however, certainly from my experience and from talking to other people, is that there was a concerted effort to not leave on outside lights, to turn of the lights on the stairs and ensure that the lights in rooms were turned, whereas perhaps before the energy price increases, people may have had a more relaxed attitude. Usage dropped during that period, even though people were conscious of the initial costs. That is welcome at any time. Reduced usage means reduced costs. That, in itself, was a benefit.

I want to touch on the issues of wind farms. There is a very exciting project of the west coast of Galway called the Sceirde Rocks Windfarm. When Deputy Bruton was Minister, the project received preferred status. It has gone through the various stages since then. Hopefully, we will see that developed and there will be a knock-on benefit both in terms of construction jobs and to the community fund and local community in Connemara. That will be beneficial.

Obviously, many projects relating to onshore energy are going ahead. I continue to receive representations and meet people who are concerned about onshore developments and issues relating to proximity to houses, the visual aspect or shadow flicker. This is a real issue for many individuals. They are genuinely concerned. They feel that the system is stacked against them in terms of the planning process. There are reams of data with regard to all these matters when they go into the local authority, and there is very little hope of the ordinary Joe Soap being able to combat that information or check and verify it.

There have been concerns about plans for new developments or even the visual aspect in circumstances where planning permission has been granted for a development where the height is being increased. I have met people while out walking in recent weeks who have genuine concerns in that regard. I know from experience that when wind farms were being constructed in the past, there were issues with noise and dust from road construction. The impacts on local residents have been huge. Much remedial work had to be done to widen roads to take bins out or move junctions to improve engagement with road sweepers and trucks bringing concrete and hard-core. All off that would have a huge impact. When projects are labelled 100% renewable and 100% green, there is a question about that. Obviously, they might be green once they are constructed and there is a finished product, but not so much during construction.While there were costs for the energy companies, they were able to make super-profits. It is right that there is now the temporary solidarity for that period.

I acknowledge the work of the committee on the pre-legislative scrutiny. The committee queried a lot of the losses from 2018 to 2022 to be carried forward and offset against companies' profits in 2022-2023 for the purposes of calculating the temporary solidarity contribution or whatever that is. Maybe that is something legitimate that businesses do, but there was a concern about the impact. Perhaps this is the reason the Minister of State's estimates of the revenue to be generated from this - from €250 million to €400 million - cannot put a precise value on that because of the possible tax treatments on those issues. I am just drawing attention to that and perhaps the Minister of State will comment.