Windfall Tax on the Excess Profits of Energy Companies: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-30
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Jen Cummins (SD), Dublin South-Central

I thank my colleague, Deputy Jennifer Whitmore, for bringing forward this important and timely motion. Deputy Whitmore and the Social Democrats have consistently raised the enormous pressure that energy costs are placing on households. This motion puts forward a practical solution that the Government always says we do not do but we are putting forward a solution that is simple. When energy companies are making extraordinary profits, some of the people who are struggling the most need to know where those profits are going and it needs to come back to the people who are sitting at their tables and cannot afford to pay these bills. More than 323,000 electricity accounts are in arrears. Wholesale electricity prices increased by 9.6% in August alone and are 77% higher than they were a year ago. Irish households are paying some of the highest electricity bills in Europe.
At the same time, we are seeing extraordinary profits. The ESB recorded pre-tax profits of €445.6 million in just the first six months of this year. Energia recorded pre-tax profits of €70 million in the second quarter, while Bord Gáis Energy recorded €50 million in pre-tax profits for the first half of this year. There is something fundamentally wrong when families are sitting around their kitchen tables trying to work out which bill they are going to pay because they cannot pay all of them and when the electricity bill comes in, that sometimes is the one that has to wait. We know that a windfall tax can work because we have done it already. The previous temporary solidarity contribution and the market revenue cap raised a combined €456 million. Our proposal would reintroduce those measures and ring-fence the proceeds to provide a targeted €400 energy credit to households with incomes below €70,000.
It is really important to say that it is targeted. Targeted supports are what are needed in this country, not universal for every single person and for those who can already afford to pay their electricity bills. As education spokesperson, I want to put this in the context of what families are already facing. Barnardos found that more than half of parents are worried about meeting the back-to-school costs this year. Some secondary school families are spending over €1,100 getting a child ready for school, and 57% of secondary school parents are facing a bill for digital devices with an average cost of €447. When a child finishes school and might go to third level, those costs do not disappear. Research highlighted earlier this year that the estimated spending for a young person in third level who is living out of the family home is €16,000 a year. If the young person is staying at home, it is €8,000. That is a lot of money.
Families do not experience any of these costs in isolation. A family could have one child in primary school, one in secondary and one in college. They are paying for uniforms, devices, transport, food and accommodation for those students. They are also in their own home paying for rent or mortgage. They are doing the weekly shop, the cost of which has also gone up. They are trying to fill their car with petrol or diesel, which has gone up too. The electricity bill comes through the door, if they do not get it online, of course, since I appreciate it is not the 1980s. All of these bills are not luxuries. Education is not a luxury. Heating your home is not a luxury. Turning on the lights is not a luxury.
People are working, they are budgeting, and they are cutting back. They are doing everything that has been asked of them and yet for far too many families in this country, the numbers simply do not add up anymore. I hear that in my clinics in Dublin South-Central. The Minister of State, Deputy Ardagh, and I share the constituency, and I am sure she hears it as well when she is canvassing. Parents are exhausted from constantly trying to make choices about what they can afford this week and what will have to wait until next week. I raised this in the House before. In April, I told the Government that affordability was the single biggest issue being raised with me in Dublin South-Central. People are telling me that they cannot afford their groceries, their rent, and their energy costs. We are now heading into winter, and those pressures have not disappeared. The Government needs to get a grip on the cost of living. It cannot continue to stand back while household bills rise. The energy companies simultaneously record enormous profits. It should not fall on the families. We should not have to wait and tell families they have to wait until everything is sorted out and place the blame elsewhere. We have an opportunity to help families in need now. I urge the Government to support this motion. Introduce a windfall tax on excess energy profits and ensure that the money raised goes directly towards households which need it most.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-30