Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 18 April 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action
Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Energy (Windfall Gains in the Energy Sector) Bill 2023
Mr. Evan Walker:
They are not mutually exclusive. We have one phase which is the implementation and how we are actually going to impose this on the sector. That is why the initial stakeholder engagement has been quite expansive for a non-formal process - it is not a public consultation - and has taken up a lot of time. However, to understand the nuts and bolts of actually implementing this regulation, without having to try to mitigate the negative impacts or unintended consequences in the electricity market, that does not mean there is not a next phase of stakeholder engagement with vulnerable groups, and on how this feeds into the poverty action plan and where there is even a whole strand of work in the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications relating to energy poverty and vulnerable consumers. What I am saying is these are not mutually exclusive. In the first instance, we have had to engage with these stakeholders-----