Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In its submission, the Department criticised the CRU for unwinding what it called a ministerial direction. That information was obtained, via a freedom-of-information request, from email correspondence. The CRU is independent, and yet it implemented this decision on the instruction of a Minister in 2009. It is being blamed upon unwinding a ministerial direction and told that this measure was supposed to be a permanent subsidy to large energy users. That was the language in the Cabinet memo that was sent to the CRU. Does the Minister of State support the fact that domestic households have subsidised large energy users - profitable companies - by upwards of €800 million over the past 12 years? Does he support the measure being unwound? Should it be more than the error being corrected and money going back into people's pockets? People are getting excited about it being the whole amount they have been paying to these large energy users. It is not. It is only a small amount in the context of the error that was identified when the measure was being unwound. Does the Minister of State support the fact that domestic households were subsidising large energy users?