Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I omitted to answer the first question and will do so now. We decided to sell the BGE business in its entirety, rather than break it up and sell it in modules to maximise Exchequer receipts. EU rules for the separation of competitive energy businesses from strategic gas networks apply. Centrica, Brookfield and iCON as a consortium bid the highest price for the entire business and we have agreed to sell on that basis. We must sell to the highest bidder and that is our objective. It is not a matter of how they apportion the individual unit costs within the sale. How the individual members of the consortium, whether it be Centrica, Brookfield or iCON, distribute the assets between them and determine this contributes to the overall selling price is a matter exclusively for them. We are only interested in the net overall price.

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