Leaders’ Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24 ============================================================ Jennifer Whitmore (SD), Wicklow I welcome everyone to the Public Gallery, and give a special welcome to the fifth and sixth class students. There are now more than 500,000 households in arrears on their gas and electricity bills. That number has never been higher and it is continuing to soar. Thousands of people all over the country are facing a cold and bleak winter and feel a rising sense of dread every single time a bill comes through their doors. Many of these people have never had problems paying bills before but now, despite scrimping and saving, they are simply unable to make their budgets go any further. At the same time as more people go into arrears on their bills, the profits of energy companies are booming. Just last week, the ESB announced its profits for the first half of the year: they were up by €100 million. Its CEO is in line for a pay hike of an eye-watering €161,000. This gives some indication of the bonanza that energy companies are enjoying. This is all happening while their very own customers are going cold. This is not sustainable, it is not fair and it is not right. It is time that the Government stopped hand wringing and actually did something about it. A windfall tax on the superprofits of energy companies needs to be introduced now to stop this immoral profiteering. This is money that could be used to provide support for those who need it most, a €400 targeted energy credit for low- and middle-income earners to give them some immediate relief from skyrocketing bills as they face into a very difficult winter. However, the budget needs to go much further than that. We all know that Trump caused the war in Iran and the global energy shocks that arose from it but it is the Government that has left households so exposed to these energy price shocks by failing to invest and to support them to become resilient and move away from fossil fuels. The Government has failed to invest in solar to the extent it should have. We should be front-loading investment in solar panels, which can be installed quickly and easily and bring costs down immediately. That would mean at least a saving of €450 on bills this year, next year and every year after. The Social Democrats have a solar for all plan that we are asking the Government to adopt. It would double the grants for solar panels, introduce a grant for battery storage and make solar panels free for households most at risk of fuel poverty. Finally, please roll out plug-in solar. That is what we need to see, namely, some ambition from this Government instead of the usual tinkering around the edges. Does the Tánaiste agree that it is immoral for energy companies to make windfall profits during an energy crisis? Will the Government introduce a windfall tax on their superprofits? --- 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/2026-09-24/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-24