Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As Deputy Nash knows the responsibility for regulation of the electricity market, including the compliance of electricity and gas suppliers with their licence conditions, is a matter for the independent regulator, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU. The CRU was assigned responsibility for that role in the Irish electricity sector following the enactment of the Electricity Regulation Act 1999 and subsequent legislation. It is solely accountable to the committee of the Oireachtas for the performance of its functions and not to myself as Minister.

As part of its statutory role the CRU also has consumer protection functions and sets out a number of rules for suppliers to follow in the Electricity and Gas Suppliers Handbooks. These include special provisions for vulnerable customers around areas such as billing and disconnections. The CRU also oversees the supplier-led voluntary Energy Engage Code under which energy suppliers will not disconnect a customer who is engaging with them, must provide every opportunity to customers to avoid disconnection, must identify customers at risk of disconnection and encourage them to engage and are obliged to offer a range of payment options, such as a debt-repayment plan to those in arrears. In addition the National Energy Security Framework, NESF, recently published, tasks the CRU with implementing a package of measures to enhance existing protections for financially vulnerable customers and customers in debt by the third quarter of this year.

Suppliers have also played a key rote in the delivery of a number of governmental measures aimed at supporting people to meet their energy costs. They have a statutory role in implementing the electricity costs emergency benefit scheme where a payment of €200 including VAT went to each household. They were required to implement the reduction of VAT on electricity which has been reduced from 13.5% to 9%. They also have an important role in enabling households to become active energy customers through the clean export guarantee, CEG, to new and existing micro- and small-scale generators. Some suppliers have already advertised that CEG tariff whereby households will be able to export, and eligible micro-generators will start receiving their remuneration for that from 1 July this year depending on their billing cycle. Under the energy efficiency obligation scheme, EEOS, energy suppliers help householders to save energy through measures which include energy upgrades to homes as well as the funding provided by the Government for that important task.

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