Under Article 15 of EU Directive 2003/54/EC transposed into Irish law through Statutory Instrument No. 280 of 2008, the Distribution System Operator must be independent in terms of it's legal form, organisation and decision making from other activities of ESB, not relating to distribution. The model for this legal unbundling of the distribution business adopted in SI 280 provides for a separate operator and owner of the distribution system.
Thus, ESB remains the owner of the distribution system (known as the Distribution Asset Owner) with a wholly owned subsidiary of ESB created to undertake the functions of the Distribution System Operator-ESB Networks Ltd.
Both the Distribution System Operator and the Distribution Asset Owner licences were issued on 7th January 2009 and can be viewed at the links below: