Leaders’ Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24 ============================================================ Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow I join Deputy Whitmore in welcoming our constituents from Blessington Educate Together National School. It is good to have them all here. There are a couple of points I want to respond to. I believe there is significant merit in a windfall energy tax. This is not just me commenting on it, as I chaired a meeting on it in Dublin Castle last week with all of my European counterparts. We have tasked the European Commission with doing a body of work and reporting back to the Economic and Financial Affairs Council, ECOFIN - the meeting of European finance ministers - which will take place, from my memory, on the Thursday and Friday of budget week. It is best to approach these issues at a European level. That is how we approached it in the past when the Deputy will recall that we legislated for a framework and put in place a tax at the start of the Ukraine situation after the brutal, illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine. There are some companies that are benefiting very significantly from profits, not because they are enterprising or innovative, but just because the Strait of Hormuz is shut. Therefore, there is a compelling case. Working at a European level is important, but that is not a long-term comment. The Commission is due to report back to ECOFIN on the Thursday and Friday of budget week. Deputy Whitmore's party has put forward proposals on how to help people through this winter period and beyond with their energy costs. There will be an energy package in the budget. There will be some temporary measures to help people with the here and now and this winter. However, I agree that there also need to be some measures to help people more permanently. The details of that are for budget day but the Deputy heard the Minister for energy yesterday giving an indication of a number of proposals that he intends to bring forward on battery storage and a scrappage scheme for boilers. Quite frankly, we are seeing people go gangbusters on solar panels and electric vehicles, EVs. We see it in our own community and in the data that is coming through. However, we still need to see if there is more we can do to help accelerate that because people are trying to make decisions in the here and now in their own lives to reduce their bills. People are full of common sense. We need to make it as easy as possible for them to make those decisions too. There are things we need to do in the here and now. I know the Social Democrats also voted this way on temporary excise reductions and what we do on home heating. I would make the point that the fuel allowance is already a targeted energy support. It will kick off from next Monday. We accept that, going into this winter period, energy prices will probably be the number one concern on the minds of people in this country and we will come forward with a comprehensive package of measures in the budget in 12 days' time. --- 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