Corrib gas field ownership
Deputy Bacik urges the Government to consider taking Corrib into State ownership for energy security, but the Tánaiste rejects nationalisation because compensation would cost billions and prefers a windfall tax. She asks when that tax will appear, and he says soon.
Two weeks ago I asked the Taoiseach to examine taking the Corrib gas field into State ownership. He indicated that it was not the Government's intention to do so. I again emphasise that the Government has powers to do so, powers which have already been used previously by Fianna Fáil, under the Fuels (Control of Supplies) Acts of 1971 and 1982. As we see a growing energy security and energy cost crisis this winter and in view of the fact that revenues from Corrib increased almost fourfold last year, why will the Government not consider, even on a short-term basis, taking Corrib into public ownership?
Comment on this
The reason we do not want to do that is because, as Deputy Bacik knows, any time you nationalise something you have to compensate the owners. Even if we were to nationalise Corrib for two, three, four or ten years, we would have to compensate the owners at a cost of many billions of euro. I would rather spend those many billions of euro helping people to reduce their bills than compensating a private company. That is the reason. What we propose to do, which makes more sense to me, is impose a windfall profit tax on fossil fuel producers. There are not many of them in Ireland. In that way, instead of spending billions of euro buying the company and compensating it and its shareholders, we can raise billions of euro that we can then use to reduce people's bills.