This morning, I was at a briefing from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at which the speakers talked about energy poverty and expressed their concerns about what is going to happen to people regarding the high costs of energy. They said that over the course of the past year, the organisation had 230,000 requests of help, including 1,200 a day in December. I would imagine that for those thousands of people, hearing about the €847 million profit of the ESB today must be absolutely gut-wrenching. That increase the ESB has seen is directly as a result of the high wholesale prices in generation. I understand the ESB has recommended an enhanced dividend to be paid to the State of €327 million. However, that will still leave the ESB, according to my calculations, with €231 million in profits this year, which, to me, is an obscene profit for a company to be making in the midst of such an energy crisis. Will the Taoiseach commit to making sure all the ESB's profits come back to the State and are ring-fenced to support those in energy poverty?

The ESB recorded a massive profit, of €847 million, as the Deputy said, so we will be taking a large part of that from it, both in terms of the tax on its profits - let us not forget that - and also through the special dividend we are taking this year. We will ring-fence that money to help families and businesses with the high cost of energy, and people have my commitment on that. I do not believe we should reduce the profits of the ESB to zero, for the specific reason that it is profits that build its balance sheet and it is on the basis of that that the ESB invests further. We do need to invest in renewable energy, in the grid and in upgrading our energy infrastructure, and if there are no profits, there is not a balance sheet to support that investment. If the Deputy is committed to climate action and energy security, she will understand the reasons for that.

This is less than the amount we are expecting in respect of the windfall tax.