Former top Department of Finance official, Mr Michael Tutty, who has served in the European Investment Bank for the last four years, is to become one of the country's powerful independent energy regulators, the Government has agreed.
Mr Tutty joined the Luxembourg-based bank after the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, failed in his attempt to appoint former Supreme Court judge, Mr Hugh O'Flaherty to the post.
Mr Tutty will join the Commission for Energy Regulation in the autumn, following an agreement between Mr McCreevy and the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Dermot Ahern.
In March, Mr McCreevy tried to get Mr Tutty appointed as vice-president of the European Central Bank, though his candidature failed in the face of opposition from big EU states.
Highly regarded, Mr Tutty has spent some of his time in the Luxembourg bank handling major loans for electricity generators in EU states, and those in central and eastern Europe.
The 57-year-old Dubliner, who earns €200,000 a year at the EIB, was formerly in charge of the Department of Finance's budget and economic division.
The Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) is currently headed by one commissioner, former Department of Public Enterprise official, Mr Tom Reeves.
The CER was granted regulatory powers over the electricity market under the Electricity Regulation Act, 1999, while the enactment of the Gas (Interim) (Regulation) Act, 2002 expanded its jurisdiction to regulation of the natural gas market.
