When the moratorium on gas and electricity disconnections was announced for the winter, pay-as-you-go customers were excluded. There are 340,000 such electricity meters in the State and 117,000 such gas customers. If we exclude a certain crossover and perhaps some holiday homes, we are safe to say the households excluded from the moratorium probably comprise more than 500,000 people. This issue was highlighted in the Dáil and there was a subsequent furore, debate and controversy. Some concessions were forced as a result of this. The financial penalties for switching from pay-as-you-go to bill pay were removed. Some energy companies that previously had no hardship funds introduced hardship funds. However, there is still no moratorium despite the fact that the official start date of the moratorium, 1 December, is just two weeks away. What guarantee will the Tánaiste give to pay-as-you-go customers that they will not and cannot be disconnected this winter?

I thank the Deputy. I will have to check with the Minister, Deputy Ryan, who is attending COP 27 at present, to see what solution we came up with. I know it turned out to be quite complicated given the nature of bill pay being different from pay-as-you-go. As the Deputy acknowledged, there are no disconnections at certain times such as weekends. We were trying to make it easier for people to move from pay-as-you-go to bill pay without having to pay €160. I am not sure where it ended up. I know the Department with responsibility for energy was doing some work to try to find a solution for the very reasonable issues Deputy Barry has raised. I will check the Minister, Deputy Ryan, and his people and see whether I can come back to the Deputy later.