Windfall Tax on the Excess Profits of Energy Companies: Motion [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-09-30 ============================================================ Ged Nash (LAB), Louth I will be sharing some time with my party colleague Deputy Conor Sheehan. Here we go again. We are in the same situation we were in just a couple of short years ago after Vladimir Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine. We are here again dealing with the same set of circumstances as a consequence of Donald Trump's misadventure in and on Iran. Anyone who has been awake for the last five years will know that an energy crisis is only really a crisis for the end user, the consumer, the regular citizen and the small business already struggling to make ends meet. We know that for the energy companies, however, every crisis is an opportunity. As the motion from the Social Democrats sets out, the energy companies across this land, Europe and the globe are raking in supernormal profits. That is not because of the genius of their business managers and engineers but because they are profiting from the consequences of war, plain and simple. Irish people are paying record prices in the context of the European Union, as has already been put on the record, for the energy we all should really be taking for granted. A few short years ago, many of us in the Opposition fought tooth and nail to make the case to the Government for the introduction of windfall taxes on the supernormal profits of energy companies. Finally, the Government moved, at a glacial pace, to the Opposition's position. The net result of that was the generation of close to €500 million over two years, which assisted the previous Government in its response to the energy crisis experienced by households and businesses at that time. In other words, the template is there. Last week at Leaders' Questions, I raised with the Minister for Finance the idea a windfall tax should be placed on the excess profits of power companies. We got the usual kind of response we expect from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. They said that they were looking at this, yes, and that they were having a conversation at European Union level. They said that Economic and Financial Affairs Council, ECOFIN, was looking at it and that they might have a response in a couple of weeks. It is the kind of incrementalism that Irish families who are put to the pin of their collar cannot tolerate any longer. They need help. The Tánaiste, of course, said help is on the way. What that help looks like we do not know. We will know a little more after next week's budget but I predict it will be nowhere near enough to help struggling families meet the demands of a cost-of-living crisis that has now become a permacrisis for far too many across this country. We are, as I say repeatedly, a rich country that unfortunately feels so poor for far too many. The price of energy is at the heart of that. Leaving aside the delayed development of offshore wind, our so-called moonshot moment, where has that gone? We were supposed to be generating much more offshore wind than we have at the moment. In fact, the targets have remained unmet on at least two or three occasions and the goalposts are shifting all of the time. The answers are there in terms of a renewable and retrofitting revolution but this Government does not have the vision to do that, to wean people off carbon and ensure we have a secure energy supply. In the meantime, we need a windfall tax on the profits of energy companies. The discourse on this is extremely slow. Looking at the Government, you would not think this is a crisis. The Government should know it is a crisis. Its Deputies are meeting the same people we meet and they represent the same people we meet but the Government response is far too slow. Yesterday, we heard from the energy Commissioner, Dan Jørgensen, that the view at European Commission level seems to be that states should go it alone. The Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, and the Government more generally, should not be using the incrementalism at European level in terms of ECOFIN and so on to delay its response. We need a response in next week's budget. The signal was sent from Jørgensen yesterday that it is up to individual member states to do what they wish on this matter. Indeed, the motion from the Social Democrats makes it very clear that the socialist Government in Portugal has done just that. It has introduced a windfall tax on the excess profits of energy companies, which I have no doubt is finding its way into the pockets of low and middle income families in Portugal to assist them through what will be a very difficult winter. I will say also that it is the case, as usual with the Government and it is a very on brand approach, that it is taking a piecemeal approach and attitude to the difficulties facing households in the country. In recent days, ahead of the budget, we have seen another plethora of mini-announcements from the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, on boiler replacement schemes and support in terms of battery storage for solar. In recent months, we have also seen improvements in the supports for window and door schemes. These are all piecemeal approaches that fail to understand we need a comprehensive approach to this massive challenge facing citizens across the country. We expected a comprehensive approach would be articulated in the report from the energy affordability task force but we have not seen it. This report is being suppressed and concealed. Last Thursday I said to the Tánaiste on Leaders' Questions that it would be good to see the report published. It was due to be published in the third quarter of this year, which would have allowed the Government to take a holistic approach to the supports that are needed and to the overall issue of energy generation and energy security in the country. It would also have had the effect of keeping the Opposition honest in terms of what we can feasibly do in our alternative costed proposals to assist families who are in difficulties. The Government decided not to do this and this is outrageous. We need an evidence-based approach to how we tackle this fundamental issue for Irish society and the Irish economy, from the point of view of a real just transition to give some comfort and assurance to families throughout the country. When will this report be published? We need this information. Irish households need it now. We cannot have another piecemeal approach to this issue in the budget. We need a holistic response that will matter in a meaningful way to people who need the support most. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. 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