Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:

I might comment on that from the point of view of ESB Networks. Even though there is the announcement this week about private wires, there has been an ongoing consultation process on this, working closely with the Department, going right back to 2023. As part of a consultation at that time, we put in a detailed submission about private wires. That submission is on our website. It is a 50-page document that sets out a range of factors to support the introduction in a targeted way in order to support, for example, accelerating renewable projects. We have been engaged right the way through this. We are supportive of the direction the Government wants to go on private wires. Certain things would be foundational around this, including having a strong legal framework. There is also a public safety aspect in the context of the possibility of people building and owning a private network and how that would be managed. We run a "dial before you dig" service. Those are the kinds of issues. It is also a matter of ensuring that the development of private wires does not impact the efficient delivery of the wider network for all consumers. Looking at the history of the network going back many decades, the idea of bringing it under one co-ordinated organisation was to allow efficient delivery of that. There is definitely a place for, and we support the introduction of, private wires. They will allow individual developers to make direct connections between renewable, project and a demand - for example, a factory - and we will continue to work with the Government to implement the policy.