Ms Aoife MacEvilly:

I will take some of that.

In terms of the current cost-of-living debate, we are providing data and input to the Department to support the work that is ongoing around the impact from an energy policy perspective on the cost of living. We are obviously aware that that is a much broader political issue encompassing challenges for customers around food prices, transport etc., and we are looking at it from that point of view.

We do not see a price cap as being a solution in this situation. Members may have seen, if they have been observing what is happening in the UK market, for example, that they have a price cap in place for certain customers and this has been highlighted as being somewhat detrimental during a period of high and volatile prices. The price cap has not protected customers because we have just seen a significant increase in the price cap because its function is to reflect underlying costs. It has also created an environment in which 27 suppliers over the past six or nine months have exited the market suddenly in the UK leaving customers to pick up the cost of that debt. A significant proportion of the increase we have seen in the UK market recently was to pick up the bill for the suppliers that have exited the market. We are neither inputting on that as a potential policy response at present, nor, indeed, on windfall taxes.

While windfall taxes have been talked about in Europe, you have to identify whether there is an actual windfall and most countries that have looked at it have found that there is not necessarily a windfall to tax. For instance, while electricity prices on the wholesale market have increased, you can see that generators are also having to face the price of the gas commodity. They are buying it at that higher cost to produce the electricity and there is no apparent windfall to come at.

What we have looked at is the EU toolkit to address energy prices. Clearly, we are working with the Government, for example, on the now €200 electricity credit as one of those measures.

In terms of the policy in general, the Deputy is correct that we would have this constant trade-off between ensuring security, sustainability and keeping price pressure on. You rarely find something that ticks all three boxes. If we invest in networks, as Senator Boylan said, to support security of supply or sustainability, we are also increasing costs. That is the reality of the balance we make. However, we work within an overarching policy framework. We are guided by Government policy, in particular when we are looking at, let us say, the mix of renewables and gas and the fuel mix in the future energy system. We are very much guided by policy around the climate action plan, for example. We are working towards the 80% renewables target but also trying to assess the additional generation capacity, such as gas-fired capacity, that is needed to support that 80% renewables target and for those days when the wind is not blowing. We still need to support security of supply and that is a constant balance.

I wonder if other colleagues want to come in on that or add to it.