Mr. Fergal Mulligan:

We meet EirGrid and the ESB fairly often and we speak about these issues, of course. EirGrid manages the grid and the risk of the grid, and it manages it very well. At present there are no immediate alerts, and there have not been immediate alerts in recent years, in terms of the security of supply issue. The demand on the network from large energy is significant but this is where grid investment is required. At present, the grid is catering for what the grid demand is. Again, the job of the network operators is to manage this demand and not put so much demand on the energy network that it cannot cope. This is the responsibility of the semi-States and at present they are doing this. What they are telling us is that to cater for future demand they need to spend up to €18 billion to be able to have 300,000 more houses and all of the industrial development we expect to have. The problem with investment is that it takes a long time to build and there is a lead time between investments. Large energy users and others can build within a couple of years but energy takes five to ten years to build. This is what we need to manage.