Ms Yvonne Murphy:

I am sure Mr. Connolly also has a response. As Deputy Smith said, this is no good for us. Without consumer confidence and affordability, our industry will not be able to realise the level of demand that is needed to justify the network. It is very much in our interest that this be resolved and that the consumer confidence piece is there. It is incredibly unfortunate and we have significant sympathy with those who have been caught in this. It was an unforeseen situation when many of these schemes were put in place, particularly in terms of choosing gas. The long-term stability of low gas prices was relied upon.

In addition to any efficiency issues, the difficulty with these schemes was that they were sufficiently large scale to be on commercial contracts that operate much like tracker mortgages. They do not benefit from the buffer of hedging but very much track gas prices. The one benefit, which is cold comfort to those who have had a very difficult winter, is that this tracking moves both ways and so those prices should be tracking downwards. We absolutely need to learn from that.

In terms of the members directly involved and also those who do not operate that end of our organisation, we are very keen to make sure that measures are put in place for that kind of consumer protection. We recognise that it is an issue now and it needs to be dealt with. We are hopeful a strong regulatory regime but also strong levels of competition and efficiency across the networks would deliver the kind of system that could create dependability and affordability for consumers.