Dr. Paul McGowan:

In February, we were notified by the ESB that a matter had arisen in a protected disclosure that may be of relevance to us. It was actually a very narrow point. It was a narrow point in regard to the allowance that ESB had been given for its safety programme and the fact that the allowance it had sought was not adequate enough. The second point raised was that it had perhaps overspent the allowance. It is not unusual for management to prioritise decisions in the day-to-day running of the business and move budgets between one area and another. We do not regulate or manage ESB Networks or any of the networks we regulate to that level. We did not, on the face of it, see any issue with this but we determined that we would consider it in the look back associated with PR4, which we will conduct later this year and into next year. It was not until some time in June that we were advised that there was a programme airing on the matter.