Vol. 571 No. 4
175 Mr. Gogarty asked the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the advice his Department took prior to the awarding of the contracts in the AER VI scheme to ensure that the awarding of a large number of contracts to the incumbent State monopoly generation company would not be in possible breach of EU competition rules. [22172/03]
My Department did not take specific advice in relation to the issue raised in the question. AER VI is the sixth in a series of competitions conducted under the AER programme. The initial competition, AER I, was conducted by the ESB. Subsequently the ESB declared an interest in participating as an applicant in future competitions.
Legal advice was then taken and the ESB was excluded from any part in the selection process of subsequent AER competitive rounds. The terms and conditions of each subsequent AER competition were set by my Department and scrutinised by independent legal advisers. No concern was expressed about the ESB's participation.
The ESB has participated in previous AER competitions without attracting adverse comment from a legal or competition point of view. The European Commission has had ample opportunity to raise issues of this kind and thus far has not done so.
