The country's biggest electricity provider, ESB, made a record profit of €847 million last year after imposing huge price hikes on households and businesses.
It said the increase was mainly due to the impact of higher wholesale prices in its generation and trading businesses both in Ireland and the UK.
ESB explained that the generation and supply sides of its business are obliged to operate independent of one another so increased profits from its generation division cannot be used to subsidise its Electric Ireland operations.
