Ms Karen Trant:

In terms of a cliff edge, which I think is what the Deputy was possibly alluding to, there is nothing to indicate that at this point. We are in constant daily contact with the suppliers to make sure that is not the case and that we are not seeing some kind of backlog of disconnections that are going to happen. Suppliers do not really want to disconnect; what they want is the customer to engage. Sometimes the disconnection piece is the only bit that will encourage the customer to engage. It is not ideal but, on occasion, it works. We would be very concerned to see an increase or a significant uptake in disconnections. We will be monitoring that very closely. As commissioners MacEvilly and Gannon have said, we will be looking closely at the protections that need to be in place for this winter. What we do not want is for customers to fear the bills that are going to come in through the door and to avoid any contact with the suppliers. We have been told by suppliers that they have their staff well trained to deal with sensitive issues like this. If customers are in financial difficulty in this area, they are probably in difficulty in other areas. As Commissioner MacEvilly has said, some people do not want to avail of a hardship fund. For whatever reason, suppliers find it difficult to give away money. The likes of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and some of the charitable organisations administer those funds. We will be asking them to give us a breakdown, or at least some kind of global figure, as to who has accessed them and what level has been utilised. If more communications are needed around that, we will certainly do that.