Ms Aoife MacEvilly:

As there was a common theme in the questions on retail prices from Deputies Stanley and Dooley, I will take those together. Members may be aware that the CER has recently published a major review of the operation of retail markets in Ireland. We specifically looked at whether competition is delivering for consumers. The key findings were that competition is delivering benefits, particularly for active energy consumers, and we can see that. There are two areas where we want to do more work. First, because many consumers are not as active, they are not seeing the same level of benefits. The other is highly pertinent to the question the Deputy asked. We have seen retail prices fall in recent years, driven largely by the falling wholesale price to which both Deputies referred. However, there are other elements of cost, so it is not a direct one-to-one relationship between wholesale and retail prices. We have seen network costs increasing. We regulate network costs, so we understand that. We are investing more to deliver more benefits and to decarbonise our energy system. We have also seen what we call the supply cost element increasing. That is an area on which we have less visibility. We have said in our review that we want to understand that better and to ensure we are seeing the full value passed on to consumers. That is an area we are investigating further. We are seeking input from the energy companies to understand what that dynamic is showing us. Are there increasing costs for energy suppliers and are there ways in which we can help tackle those costs? That is an area to which we are giving full focus at the moment. Our review has been a critical moment for the evolution of policy in this area. Deputy Stanley's bill should have been falling if he has been using the same amount of electricity. All suppliers have reduced their unit charges by some extent, so we have seen those benefits pass through. Our question is whether the full extent is being passed through. That is what we want to understand better.

In terms of what more might be done, particularly in terms of this passage, a real emphasis is on encouraging customers to be more active. That may be shopping around and finding what is the best value or participating in the market through enabling technologies like smart meters or potentially other smart home energy efficiency opportunities or the opportunity to export. We believe potentially game-changing opportunities for customers are coming down the tracks. If a customer is really keen to see the full pass-through of what is happening with the wholesale price, they may be interested in a dynamic tariff. Dynamic tariffs are on the table.

Broadly, the emphasis of the clean energy package is very much in line with the areas that we are looking at. It is trying to ensure that we have efficient pricing, market-based pricing and fully competitive markets and to ensure that is passed on to consumers. It also is about ensuring that consumers are really well informed and active, are shopping around and have opportunities to gain the best value. We introduced a number of changes late last year about how we can provide better information to consumers and make it simpler for them to do that, even in the existing market. There is a lot more that we can do to help consumers there.