Coillte and Bord na Móna paid out a combined dividend of €47 million to the state last year, the Minister for Finance, Michael McGrath has confirmed.
In response to a written parliamentary question from the leader of the Social Democrats, Catherine Murphy, Deputy McGrath said that commercial semi-state companies paid an estimated €199.4 million in dividends to the exchequer in 2022.
This figure is up by almost one-third on 2021 when the state was paid €151.8 million by the companies. However, it is down considerably on the 2019 total of over €262 million.
The majority of the 2022 total came from the ESB which paid an estimated dividend of €121.6 million, compared to around €77 million in 2021 and €47 million in 2020.
This was followed by Ervia, previously known as Bord Gáis, with a dividend of €30.1 million, which is down from €38.4 million in 2021.
Dividend
The Minister for Finance confirmed that the dividend paid by Coillte to the state in 2022 was an estimated €25 million, which is similar to the record-high amount paid in 2021.
The semi-state forestry company paid €2.3 million in state dividends in 2020 and €13 million the previous year.
The dividend paid by Bord na Móna to the exchequer was around €21.7 million.
This is a significant increase on the 2021 figure which stood at almost €6.4 million.
Semi-state port company Shannon Foynes Port gave a dividend to the state of €400,000 last year, while the Port of Waterford paid €266,135 and the Port of Cork paid €250,000.
The data does not list any dividends paid by EirGrid or the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) in 2022.
In 2021, EirGrid contributed €4 million in a dividend to the state.
The IAA paid €40,500 in 2021, compared to €7.78 million in 2020 and €19.5 million in 2019.