Ms Aoife MacEvilly:

I think it is fair to say we are not aware of a systemic issue. We have instead seen periodic issues come to our attention. This matter has not come to us, however, as the kind of systemic issue the Deputy is asking about. We will go back, though, and check. The other aspect of this is that one of the benefits of the smart meter roll-out is to eliminate this challenge of customers having to submit manual readings and of having long periods where people do not have actual readings. The benefit of this change is that people can see daily updates and their bills are always up to date. Sometimes we see people querying, if the tariff changed in the middle of their two monthly bill, how a certain part of the cost was apportioned to the cheaper tariff and another part to the more expensive tariff. All of that will be eliminated by the better provision of data from smart meters. More than half of households now have smart meters in place and we will see the continued roll-out of these meters throughout 2024. This will then no longer be an issue. It is, frankly, one of the worst things we come across. Issues concerning billing are important to customers. There is also the perennial situation of customers who have not had a meter reading, sometimes for years, and then suddenly being faced with a horrendous catch-up bill that imposes real hardship and challenges. All these issues, whether large, like the one I just mentioned, or small, are included as one of the targets to be addressed by the smart metering programme.