Professor Barry McMullin:

As the Senator said, the technical risk profile has not changed. The political arrangements have changed because of Brexit, so from the point of view of complying with the EU regulation, something further is necessary. There are other people more informed on this than me, but I understand the Commission would not oppose if there could be a sufficient political agreement at that level between the UK and the EU and Ireland. The Commission would be prepared to allow a waiver on the N-1 or a continuation of the regional assessment. The CRU rightly says that whether or not that can be done politically there is still a technical risk and maybe we should never have accepted that regional risk assessment. On the one hand, political action could reinstate that. With respect to political risk or bad faith in that relationship, that risk is really low.

The Senator mentioned the fact the pipelines service Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man as well as the Republic of Ireland, so that is a political factor. The UK is a net natural gas importer from interconnections to mainland Europe as well as direct LNG imports from outside the EU. I am not suggesting it would, but hypothetically speaking, the diplomatic risk for the UK in engaging in some bad faith disruption makes it hard to see where that could be in its strategic interest, given its dependence on gas pipeline interconnection to mainland Europe. As a final point, the infrastructure we are talking about is owned by Gas Networks Ireland UK limited and is operated by that company from a control centre in Cork. If we put all those things together that risk is relatively well managed, shall we say, in the spectrum of risks we are dealing with.

I do not dismiss the CRU concerns that the technical risk and regional assessments probably always were a little higher than we should be comfortable with. The complete paralleling of that pipeline, meaning we now have two independent pipelines, significantly mitigated that. However, if we lose one of those pipelines, that already causes a significant gas emergency and if it is a prolonged loss then that is problematic. I therefore respect the CRU's position on that. If there were an overall judgment that requires further mitigation then, as I said, we are into gas storage facilities, preferably. That is where I would look.