Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein)
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I am convinced someone is trying to sabotage me because we keep changing the order every week. We are here this morning because it has been impossible not to notice the welcome news in the newspapers that €50 is going back into every household's electricity accounts as a result of an error made by ESB Networks.The bigger question is as to why domestic customers were subsidising large energy users for 12 years. In 2009, the Government gave an instruction to the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to implement a subsidy on a permanent basis. The instruction was for domestic users to subsidise the network tariffs of large energy users. Large energy users include data centres and pharmaceutical companies. Those entities are very profitable. The plan was basically an instruction to the CRU to rebalance things in favour of large energy. It was allowed to go on for 12 years and was couched in language about protecting jobs because of the financial crash. Many households were on their knees at that time and could have done without subsidising these profitable companies, but it happened.

The CRU allowed it to continue for 12 years. The CRU notified the Government that it had made a decision last year that it would unwind this subsidy. I have asked the Minister of State to come before the House because the Department of his predecessor, An Taoiseach, made a submission to the CRU on the back of the decision to unwind the subsidy that domestic households were paying to large energy users. The Department criticised the decision and said that the CRU was acting contrary to a ministerial direction. It said that the decision was punitive to industry and big business and that it would probably cost big businesses approximately €70 million. What the Department did not say is that it cost households €70 million and that the position in this regard needs to be redressed.

Does the Minister of State support the view of his predecessor and the Department that the subsidy domestic households are paying towards large energy users should continue indefinitely as a permanent measure, as the Government of 2009 indicated to the CRU it wanted to see happen, or does he support his other colleague in Government, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who stood up in the Dáil last week and claimed credit for the removal of the subsidy by saying he had instructed the CRU to remove it, because it was unfair, after 12 years? Which does he support? Does he support the Minister, who is trying to claim credit for putting money back in people's pockets, when it was us who were chasing this for months, or does he support the view of the Taoiseach and that of is own Department to the effect that this is a punitive measure and that the average domestic household should continue to subsidise large energy users such as Amazon, Google and big pharmaceutical and agribusiness companies, which are all very profitable, and foot the bill for them in this regard in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis? That is the question for the Minister of State. Does he support the view of the Minister or that of the Taoiseach with regard to who should be paying this subsidy?

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I am grateful to the Senator for bringing this matter to the floor of the Seanad. I agree with her that it is very welcome €50 is being refunded into many people's electricity bills this month. However, I am under no illusion about this being a tiny amount compared with the substantial rise in costs that individual and businesses of all sizes have been faced with when it comes to energy prices, largely due to Russia's brutal war in Ukraine and the knock-on effect that is having on the Continent. It is important to remember the various measures the Government has brought in to support business through the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS, which has been extended as per the announcement today, as well as the three €200 electricity credits that will be rolled out to households; not to mention the 80,000 additional households that will be eligible for the fuel allowance.

With regard to the matter of the reallocation of network costs, I remind the House that the CRU is the independent regulator of various utilities in Ireland, including the electricity sector. The allocation of grid costs to energy customers, which was the subject of the CRU consultation to which my Department's submission relates, is entirely a matter for the CRU. The CRU is the appropriate regulator to ensure that grid tariffs appropriately reflect the cost of providing grid services alongside national policy objectives such as developing a smart grid system and decarbonisation. The CRU is directly accountable to the Oireachtas, and questions on the allocation of grid tariffs would most appropriately be put to it. The CRU consultation to which my Department was responding was about a proposed change to electricity network tariffs, which was in response to the national energy security framework agreed by Government last April.

It is important to stress the consultation did not relate directly to the earlier CRU decision to unwind the rebalancing framework for large energy users which has been determined beforehand, to which I believe the Senator is referring. It is clear from my Department's submission that the word "punitive" was used to describe the cumulative effects of both the significant proposals that were the subject of the CRU consultation and the previous decision to unwind the large energy user rebalancing framework, which did not form part of the proposal. The submission made no judgment on the decision to unwind the large energy users rebalancing framework, except to highlight that it had been done without consultation. The Government is focused on facilitating investment in our energy system to deliver price competitiveness over the medium term for all users. We are determined to deliver a diversified energy system with significant support for energy efficiency and renewables, alongside independent regulation in the event the CRU implemented its proposals only in part, with the changes aimed at protecting security of supply.

Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein)
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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?

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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It would be very easy to try to put the reply in a simplistic manner of "Yes" or "No". The Senator has been around politics in this House and beyond far too long not to know this is an extremely complex matter that involves a number of strategies. It is important to put to the House the fact that the Department has a keen interest in energy prices, not only for businesses and the implications for their competitiveness but also for individual users. The Department engages with the CRU frequently. The CRU has not indicated that the original proposals related specifically to extra large energy users, following input from stakeholders, although the system operators will continue to engage these and other industrial users to develop suitable energy demands seeing as that promotes security of supply. I stand over the submission that was made by the previous Minister. It was right. However, it is important to note that the submission was not just on one individual point. The work of the CRU should continue in that independent manner, and the Department will continue to engage it. I would be more than happy to speak with the Senator in more detail in order to work through this mater as we go along.