Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To go back to prioritisation of customers on the grid, I was informed by Gas Networks Ireland that it is the opposite. If there is any shortage of gas, households are prioritised. It is not out of any social justice motive, it is because of pilot lights being kept on, which is really important from a public safety point of view. When it comes to electricity, if there is load shedding or blackouts, households are the first to be cut off. That is what I was told. I think it is important that we have clarity on that.

My other question is about the CRU being answerable to the committee. That is the case, but the CRU also, under its remit, says it has to be cognisant of a framework of Government policy. In 2009, we saw a Government very directly intervene in the independence of the regulator in saying you had to recalibrate network tariffs in favour of large energy users. That was a policy decision taken at a Cabinet level and an intervention sent directly to the regulator at the time.

Regarding the Government, its role around the regulator and what the regulator can or cannot do, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment made a submission to CRU's public consultation recently and went beyond the scope of that submission to defend large energy users and criticise the CRU for the decisions it had taken around the network tariffs. It had no qualms about going beyond the remit of the public consultation because it felt that the CRU needed to know what the Government's position was. The CRU does come in and, as a committee, we have agreed for it to come in even on a monthly basis, because we are trying to get as much information as possible. It does operate in the framework of Government policy. The buck does stop with the Minister of State, if he wants this to happen in terms of who gets switched off first or what sort of back-up generation they have. That can be determined by Government policy.