The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment has been called to rule out a price rise for electricity customers during repair works to the East-West interconnector.

Fianna Fáil Spokesperson on Energy Timmy Dooley confirmed the interconnector will be out of commission for the next five months.

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Deputy Dooley said: "Wholesale Gas prices decreased by 29% in 2015 but customers are not seeing equivalent cuts in their electricity and gas bills by the main retail operators – in fact most prices have only reduced by around 5%.

"When questioned on the issue, Minister Naughten indicated that "the CER does not expect any significant rise in electricity retail prices as a result of this outage". This does not inspire confidence that consumers will be protected against potential price increases."

(CD/LM)