Charlie Weston

But also it's expensive.

Renewable, getting renewable onto the system is expensive once you have it on there.

you know, it tends to operate at a low cost.

But all of this costs an awful lot of money and our grid is outdated as well.

I mean, it just needs to be upgraded.

So massive expense.

So we have this awful situation where we have the most expensive electricity in Europe.

This is based on figures from last year, the Eurostat lockdowns.

Yeah, and it's already been flagged by the Energy Minister, Dar O'Brien, that we're going to see increases this year.

He talked about a figure of between 4% and 9%.

Now, 9% on your average electricity bill will be about €150.

In some senses, if we got away with that amount, it mightn't be too bad.

But yeah, as you say, prepaid power...

a pay-as-you-go operator with 240,000 customers.

They've already announced an increase for June the 1st.

I've been asking Electric Ireland what their plans are because they had a price freeze in place, but they didn't go last year, even though a whole string of companies increased their prices.

So look, it could just get worse, unfortunately.

Yes, Matt, you're absolutely right.

This beds for sheds thing is controversial.

Some people think it's going to be a lot of landlords putting in modular homes and gardens and exploiting people, charging a lot for small spaces.