Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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If the decision was to switch €50 million from one column to another, why was it ever conceived that that was a percentage share being switched? From what everyone has said, it sounds like €50 million was the amount. It seems strange that a decision would be made in sharing out how much of its costs fell on business consumers of one sort or another, or on householders - that it would make this change when the original was €50 million. I do not quite understand. It does not seem complex to me that you go from sharing what was to be a fixed amount. It seems a bit strange.

In terms of the beneficiaries there is a 25% increase in their charge to recover the overpayment over the coming three years. Does that just apply to the original €1,300 or to the number that is now there of €2,100. How is that being recovered. Different people presumably had different benefits from the overcharging of consumers over the course of the period. The issue, more for the regulator and the Minister, is whether any issues of state aid arise in respect of payments of this nature. Segments seem to have gotten benefit of money allocated to them by administrative fiat. Could that be construed as state aid and could any wider issues arise here?