Ms Aoife MacEvilly:

It is a really valid question. Protection of data, because this is personal data, is extremely important. We have been given powers under legislation to set up a new data access code that would govern that and put clear guidance in place around how some of this data can be accessed and used, and by whom. To give some examples, there is a lot of frustration at the moment that during last winter, nobody could use the aggregate data to assess impacts of demand measures and peak demand measures. There is a lot of concern that we are not optimising the use of aggregate data in planning. There are some really valid cases where there should be rights to access, particularly of aggregated data to help us do a better job on climate action measures. It would also be very helpful if suppliers could access data for their customers to be able to explain to them that they would do better on a particular type of tariff. This relates to the type of question that Deputy O'Sullivan raised. Customers are looking at the tariffs and saying they are not running their washing machines after 11 p.m. but they might be surprised by how much electricity they actually do consume after 11 and overnight without even running major devices. It would be helpful even just for somebody to be able to advise a customer that they would be better off to switch to a particular tariff and to show them the evidence of that but suppliers cannot access that data at the moment. There are clear use cases in which clearer rights to the access of data for certain purposes under controlled and regulated conditions would be very beneficial to customers and also help us do better on climate action. I completely agree that it has to be completely respectful and protective of customers' rights around data protection and data security.