Dr. Robert Kelly:

As the Deputy correctly points out, the quarterly bulletin notes that we are out of line with Europe. It is very clearly the case that when we saw the rising prices for consumer energy, we rose almost in lockstep with Europe, but Europe has seen quite a reduction while they have remained elevated in Ireland. There are a number of reasons for this. I will not pretend to be an expert on the actual pricing strategies of individual energy providers, and I would not be able to comment about that. What typically happens within this market is a lot of hedging and there is a question as to what extent that hedging is featuring.

Most certainly we did not see the spike in the wholesale costs going as high in consumer prices. Some of it was taken off but individual hedging strategies could well be slowing down the pass through.