Ms Aoife MacEvilly:

On the standing charges, first, where homes are connected to the network there are costs associated with providing those network services to those customers, which must be recovered. Some of those costs exist even if the customers are using very little electricity, because it is a holiday home or because they upgraded their home to A-rated status or whatever else, or they are using solar photovoltaic, PV, during the day for their electricity but they still require additional electricity at peak times. There is a basis for having a standing charge. It is a socialisation of costs, which ensures that everybody pays their way and that customers who can afford to invest in upgrading their home are not being subsidised by customers who cannot afford to do so. We do think there is a basis for having a standing charge. It is a fixed cost, if one likes, associated with serving customers. Some of the concerns Senator Higgins raises are about whether the standing charge becomes such a high portion of the bill that it perhaps disincentivises those who are trying to reduce their energy costs. That is perhaps something we will examine when we look periodically at the component costs of a typical customer's bill. We look at the extent to which there are fixed costs, unit charges, the PSO levy and VAT. All of that changes over time. It is a good point to look at that and see if after the current round of price increases over time there is a dramatic change in the proportion of fixed costs versus unit costs that would give rise to concerns about disincentivising reduced usage. That is valid and is something that we will continue to monitor.