Mr. Jim Dollard:

In terms of prices, typically Electric Ireland buys the power for any given month in slots in order to smooth the impact and reduce the likelihood of vagaries of price occurring. In this way it takes advantage of the market and does not expose customers to peaks in prices. What that means is that it has taken particular slots. Certainly the price reductions that happened, particularly towards the latter end of last year, were because those slots were coming in cheaper and that price impact has been passed on to the customer. The bigger impact is more likely to be in 2016, because as we buy forward more of that will come through. Assuming that the 70% of other costs remains stable I would forecast that prices will continue to come down and the suppliers will do that. It is my expectation that those prices will come down later this year.

In terms of the switching and where resources are going I will comment generally on that. It is only five or six years ago that we in Electric Ireland, ESB as it then was, had 100% of the domestic residential market. In that time more than 50% of customers have switched. They may have switched back and forward but more than 50% have switched. The rate of switching in Ireland is significant and is now among the highest in Europe. I believe that switching is a factor in any market. A policy decision was made to open the market; once that was done providers had to compete on either price, products, or through some other method. Discounts and switching are a key factor if there is to be a competitive market. Electric Ireland has received the brunt of that because it has conceded huge amounts of share. In the longer term the focus of switching per sewill have to be balanced by other directions. The customers who stay with a provider have to also see benefits and I believe that is a very important factor. It is not something that is widely known. Electric Ireland is beginning to focus more and more on existing customer and the loyalty of those customers.