Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent)

I can forward the emails, knowledge and information I have to Mr. McPartlan that show there is an issue. There most certainly is an issue.

With regard to his second point about the European directive, why do we always look to Europe to hold our hands? Can we not set up a regulatory body ourselves in Ireland? I say this as an independent TD, but I know TDs across parties raised the issue of fuel quality in the Chamber during the previous Dáil. Those TDs came from across all parties and constituencies; they were not just from my constituency. There is an issue in this regard. It is a growing problem. If it is affecting five or six companies, that is five or six too many. I know for a fact that a lot more than five or six companies are affected by this issue. They have had first-hand experience of it.

I certainly take Mr. McPartlan's point about monitoring fuel costs. That absolutely needs to be done by an expert group, but so too does the monitoring of the quality of fuel. It must be done or we are going to have a much bigger problem down the track. Companies want to use the more efficient fuel that is better for the environment, but there has to be some oversight. We do not need to look to Europe to do that for us. It is good to have that layer in place, but we need to do it here as well.