Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:

I thank the Deputy for his questions. By way of an introductory remark on the whole area of investment in rural communities, one of the benefits that has come out of the investment in renewables over the past 20 or 30 years is that it has led to an investment in grid infrastructure right across, especially if you consider the growth of wind on the west coast. That has been one of the knock-on benefits when it comes to rural communities.

To deal with the Deputy's specific question on connection costs for rural houses, I will first set the scene on it a little. Our connection charges are published every year. They are updated and that process is overseen by the CRU. All our standard charging for connections, for both rural and urban domestic houses, is set out in those charges. The cost of a 12 kVA standard connection for a rural house is just less than €3,500. I will ask my colleague, Mr. Rossiter, to say a little more on this shortly. As I said, however, the costs are published.

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