Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 24 September 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy
Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities
2:00 am
Mr. Fergal Mulligan:
That would be because there would still be a need to recover a huge amount of fixed and operating costs. That is just the laws of physics. This is why large countries like the UK or France, which have 50 million or 60 million customers, benefit from economies of scale and scope. This was what Mr. Gibbons was saying earlier in terms of Ireland Inc. We have just over 2 million customers, perhaps 2.5 million customers, on a large network that is very dispersed. The actual unit price is a factor of that dispersed network, which is a really-high cost network, with four times the amount of network compared with other countries. There is also lower demand because we have fewer users. Many factors are in play regarding what the unit price might be.
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