Dr. Karen Kavanagh:

The issue the Senator is referring to is around the rebalancing which was introduced at the time of the crisis. It was introduced in 2012. The Senator is correct there was a rebalancing between domestic and large energy users. We removed that three years ago. At the time when we removed it, ESB Networks identified that there had been an error in how it had been applied to the tune of €100 million. That was immediately corrected in domestic bills. It was rebalanced against large energy users who had to pay that back over three years. It was corrected for domestic customers immediately. On a structural technical issue, that was on the distribution system. It was relating distribution system monies.

The issue that has been alluded to here and the reason there is disparity across the PR6 piece is because the large energy user customers are essentially connected or more exposed to cost at a transmission system level. The money for the temporary emergency generation was recovered through transmission system charges. They were exposed over the period to transmission system charges in a way that domestic customers were not, which saw their tariffs increase by approximately 175% versus 45% at a domestic customer level. As that is removed, they are seeing the benefit of it being removed. If one was to strip that out and look at the increases across PR6, large energy users and all categories of customers are seeing the impact of PR6 in a way that is consistent with our current cost allocation.