Price controls and energy bills
Bríd Smith criticised the Government’s response to Electricity Ireland price hikes and argued consumer law could allow price intervention. The Taoiseach replied that retail prices could be regulated in law but wholesale prices could not, and that this was not the route he intended to use.
There are four Deputies remaining so I will group them together. They have 30 seconds each.
Comment on this
This morning, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, gave an extraordinary interview on a number of fronts, not least his guarded defence of the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins. What was more worrying was his attitude to the hike in prices by Electric Ireland. He sounded like an innocent bystander, pretty much as the Taoiseach has sounded today on the same topic. The Government seems to think it cannot do anything to intervene. May I remind the Government of the Consumer Protection Act 2007, sections 61 and 62 of which would allow the Government to control prices? Will the Taoiseach comment on that? Also, is it not about time the Government started to rethink the remit and the mandate of the ESB and bring it back to a not-for-profit mandate?