Dr. Tricia Keilthy:

I thank the Deputy for her questions. I will speak a little about the disconnection moratorium and then Ms Petrie might comment on vulnerable customers, community energy advisers and retrofitting.

We are still not seeing the true impact of the ending of the moratorium. It was lifted at the end of March and people with very large bills may be entering that process at the moment. We know from our engagement with suppliers that cutting customers off is absolutely a last resort. The data show that disconnection levels have remained low, including when the moratorium was lifted last year. There are protections under the energy engage code such that people who engage with their supplier will not be cut off. However, there is important work to do around communication and ensuring people are aware of the protections, including the hardship funds that can help them and the payment plans of which they can avail. The reality is that energy is an essential service and we need to view it as such. People's supply absolutely should not be cut off for any reason. It is really important that there are sufficient protections for people and that they are not going without heat and light.

We have seen an issue with prepay meter disconnections specifically relating to self-disconnection, which is when people run out of credit and their supply cuts out. There has been enough of a buffer for people on electricity prepay meters over the past year due to the Government credit. The big gap or vulnerability has been for users of prepay gas meters. The technology used is older and people cannot do as many top-ups. During the past winter, we have seen households really struggling, with regular disconnections and a lot of self-rationing. We cannot have another winter of that. We need a working group comprising the regulator, suppliers and the Department to come up with a strategy to prevent disconnections on prepay gas meters. That is a priority for us and we would like to see it highlighted and pushed forward. There are things that can be done on the gas networks side, but we also need to look at the technology to ensure this cohort of customers do not miss out on supports for another winter.