Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

That is fine. I should acknowledge that I had been talking to Mr. O’Loughlin during this process. I did not approach the ESB on any of this because I understood there was a mediation process taking place and I was hoping that it would resolve the issues. I am not questioning any of the ESB representatives or Mr. O'Loughlin.

On a public interest matter, a concern was raised about the fault locator vans. I am not a technical expert but I heard earlier a description of incidents involving fault identifier crews travelling in vans. A question arose regarding the inventory of vans and the upgrading, maintenance and monitoring of them and the equipment in them. A description was given of a crew who were getting a live electric charge - I do not know what the correct technical word is - but they had to earth it using a wooden platform or whatever to enable use of some of the fault detector equipment. I may be inaccurate on that. Ms Quane will have seen the earlier presentation and I presume she knows what I am talking about. As I said earlier, I would have thought that fault detector vans would be a key part of the function the ESB prides itself on doing well in maintaining a grid, even in stormy or difficult conditions.