CER spends €8m on consultants

THE energy regulator spent almost €8 million on external consultants over a two-year period.

The Commission for Energy Regulation’s (CER) annual report for 2004, reveals that it spent just over €3m last year on consultants’ fees on top of a €4.85m bill the previous year.

The annual report does not reveal what the money was spent on or who the consultants are.

Expenditure on consultants by the CER, which regulates the electricity and gas markets, in the past two years has equalled almost half of the income it has received over the period. Overall income at the CER was €7.9m in 2004, down from €9.5m the previous year.

The primary source of income for the regulator is the ESB, Bord Gais and the independent electricity and gas suppliers.

The amount paid out to consultants over the two years was higher than the salary bill for the CER’s staff, which was €2.6m in 2003 and €3m in 2004. The commission employs 44 people.

The salaries for commission members, Tom Reeves and former European Investment Bank vice-president Michael Tutty, came to €198,217, net of pension contributions.

Mr Tutty joined the commission in mid-October 2004. A third member, Regina Finn, was appointed earlier this year.

The body retained a surplus over expenditure of €3.1 million at the end of last year.

The regulator came in for criticism recently at a Dáil committee for approving three consecutive requests from the ESB to raise prices.

The CER has played down reports that the ESB is seeking a 20%-plus rise in prices this year. Prices have rocketed by around a third in the past few years, though much of the increase is to cope with soaring oil and gas prices.

No new operator has entered the Irish electricity market since it was opened to full competition in February this year.

Separately, the 2004 annual report of the Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR) shows that its operating surplus fell by €1m in 2004 to just under €646,096. The CAR has built up a retained surplus of €2.3m, since the office was established four years ago.

Net income for the year came in at €3.5m down from €5.6m the previous year. The salary bill for the office, which includes members on secondment from the civil service, was €1.3m.

The salary of the regulator Bill Prasifka was not disclosed in the report.

The aviation regulator’s office spent €464,000 on outside consultants in 2004, roughly the same as in 2003.