Mr. Fergal Mulligan:

The issue that arose in terms of how it was presented in May was because over the past five years we had what we call a temporary emergency generation requirement. We had a security-of-supply risk, which meant that, basically, there might not be enough capacity on the island to serve the needs of the island. A number of plants were kept on stand-by under this temporary requirement. It cost the State, consumers and all of us an awful lot of money to ensure the lights did not go out. That was recovered over a three- or four-year period, mainly from large energy users, which meant that their bills went up enormously during that time.

The statistic I would give the Deputy is that the 2021 versus 2025 bill for a large energy user went up by approximately 170%, whereas the average bill for a domestic customer would have increased by 45%. If we take out the extraordinary cost, which is a one-off exceptional cost that was incurred for that temporary emergency generation requirement, and rebalance it to normal times, the change in that bill for large energy users was far more than that for domestic. We have to take into account that one-off adjustment. While people might have seen the emergence of a document in May suggesting that large energy users are looking at a reduction, when you look at it over five years, you can see they are facing a very large increase.