Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

I have two questions. The Minister said the report is being finalised. Will he confirm whether he has already seen the draft report? A draft report was submitted to him about three weeks ago. Has he seen it and will he comment on it? Second, would the Minister not agree that it does not make sense for a small country such as Ireland to have two network companies, one owning the distribution network and one owning and managing the transmission network? Would it not make sense to merge ESB Networks Ltd. and EirGrid into a single entity, similar to what has been done in Portugal, for example? Is that an option that has been considered in the report? It can be done under the EU directive. It has been done in Portugal and it is probably a model followed in other countries. Did he receive the draft report some weeks ago and does the report consider the possibility of merging EirGrid and ESB Networks Ltd.?

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