Mr. Dermot Nolan:

It has certainly stemmed the rate of disconnection to perhaps what it what it should have been, as circumstances have gotten slightly worse and prices have risen. We have also brought in pay-as-you-go meters to address the disconnection issue for both electricity and gas. These have been around for longer in the gas market but we have introduced them in the electricity market over the past 18 months. They have been taken on and people find them reasonably effective. However, at the doorsteps, there is still considerable reluctance on the part of many customers to accept them.

I would like to make the protocol on disconnection clear. We have introduced strict protocols whereby every company must go through a prolonged process with specified contacts. They must offer the customer a payment plan, the customer must have a chance to meet the payment plan and there must be a clearly specified series of events before a disconnection takes place, including the offer of a pay-as-you-go meter.

We have audited all the companies and will do so again in the near future. We found they all meet and go slightly beyond the protocol, which illustrates the scale of the problem. The pay-as-you-go meters have been reasonably popular in one sense. In our discourse with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Money Advice & Budgeting Service, MABS, who work every day with people like this-----