ESB has published its Interim Financial Statement for the six months of 2016.

It reports an operating profit of €287m - that’s down by €50m year-on-year.

The company says that this primarily reflects “the impact of weakening sterling on earnings following the Brexit vote.”

A dividend payment of €31m was made during the first half of the year and the ESB spent €356m on capital expenditure - most of this was spent developing infrastructure.

Commenting on the results, ESB’s Finance Director, Pat Fenlon said, "In the face of intensifying competition and lower wholesale electricity prices, these results reflect a strong operating performance across the ESB Group.

"ESB continues to focus on delivering value and investing in critical long term electricity infrastructure for the benefit of our customers, shareholders and the wider Irish economy, and this is enabled by maintaining a strong financial position," he continued.

The company is the owner of the distribution and transmission networks in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It has a 49% share of generation in the all-island market and a 38% share of electricity supply in the all-island market with 1.4 million customer accounts.