Corporate profiteering and inflation
Deputy Doherty argued that corporate profits are driving the cost-of-living crisis and urged stronger action on energy and prices. The Tánaiste defended the Government’s approach, citing competition enforcement and new transparency measures, while ruling out price caps and saying the market response must be credible.
There are winners and losers in the cost-of-living crisis. The winners are clearly the big corporations. As has been mentioned, the European Central Bank, ECB, made it clear that corporate profiteering or "greedflation" has been a key driver of inflation. We see profits soaring: ESB, up; Energia, up; and Bord Gáis, up. We learned today that Shell, the biggest oil and gas operator in Europe, made profits of €8.7 billion in the first three months of this years. Despite electricity prices remaining sky high, the windfall profits of these large electricity producers will remain untouched by the Government proposals for the first 11 months of 2022. It will not apply at all during that period.
We also learned today that AIB's income has increased by 70% in the first three months of this year with net interest income to hit €3.3 billion this year alone.
What are the Governments plans, or does it have any plans, to tackle the corporate profiteering that we are seeing across many sectors as households are suffering from the rising costs and pressures as a result of inflation and the reductions of living standards as a result of it?
Comment on this
The SAFE registration process, which my Department uses to authenticate a person's identity, is a face- to-face process which results in the issuing of a Public Services Card (PSC).
I can confirm that an individual’s adoption certificate is not required for the purpose of a SAFE registration appointment.
The individual referred to by the Deputy has been contacted by officials of my Department and she attended for a SAFE registration appointment on 26th April 2023.
A PSC will be issued to her shortly.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
Comment on this
The Deputy did not suggest any increase in corporate tax because his party is of the view that there should not be increases in corporate tax because of the wider investment issues facing the country. I take it I am being accurate on that issue.
I do not believe price caps would be optimal either or would give us the outcome over time in terms of how the market would operate.
On what we are doing, we have the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, we have a new food regulator that we are establishing to bring far greater transparency on pricing, and in terms of energy, there is a windfall tax coming to capture the excessive profits that have been made by the energy companies.