Ms Karen Trant:

The ESB is designated by legislation as the supplier of last resort. The Senator is correct; it is an expensive process to acquire new customers at the moment when a company has not planned for them. Panda Power has somewhere in the range of 40,000 domestic electricity customers and a smaller number of gas customers in the region of approximately 9,000.

There is a period of time for customers to switch, which we think is really important. What we plan is an orderly exit rather than a disorderedly exit where a supplier just goes out of business overnight. That is really not the scenario we want.

We are engaging with the suppliers. There is no indication that another supplier will follow. That is no guarantee. Suppliers are being pushed at present, especially the smaller ones. The cost of acquiring those new customers at today's prices is high. There is no mechanism for recovery yet. We are looking at that with the suppliers of last resort but, again, the way to do that is to either socialise it across all the other electricity customers or find another mechanism to do it. We are looking at that and it is something that has been raised. We are also engaging with all the suppliers to understand their outlook for the next six to 18 months and potentially to stress test around that. There are no indications at present but that is no guarantee.