James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

One thing that has come up repeatedly as a TD for the people of Cork East and as Chair of this committee from the witnesses who have come before us is the difficulty of being a small business owner in Ireland and the dramatic increase in costs, if you average it out on electricity compared to where it was ten years ago.

I have always wanted to pose this question. This is my first time to have the CCPC before us at the committee since I have was elected to the Oireachtas. This is a good chance to get an answer in respect of the matter I am about to raise. The ESB Group had €313 million in profits after tax for the first six months of this year. Bord Gáis had an operating profit of €75 million in 2024. SSE Airtricity had €111 million in profit over the 12-month cycle from March 2024. The profit for the ESB Group was, as stated, after tax. Something fundamental has gone wrong with the electricity market in Ireland in terms of what consumers are having to pay. What are the facts in this regard? They are that, on average, Ireland comes first, second or third in terms of cost for non-residential electricity prices in Europe. We topped the chart for a while in the past 12 months. This is putting people out of business. What is the CCPC doing about it? Without being flippant, it does not seem to be doing very much. The energy companies seem to be getting away with this again and again. We have seen what happens. I am often labelled as a 22-year-old who came into the Dáil with no life experience. However, one of the jobs I did, which was one of the most valuable experiences I have had, while I was in secondary school and during one of my summers as an undergraduate was to work in electricity sales in rural Ireland. I will not name the company I worked for. Doing that job allows you to see what life is like behind people's doors, to see the shape and size of every home, to discover who has lots of money and, more often than not, unfortunately, to realise that those who are living on shoestring budgets are under huge pressure.

Another issue that made me sick was the number of elderly people who were unaware of what being out of contract meant for them. People have this kind of loyalty in their older years, so they like to stick with a brand. They are getting screwed for doing so because they do not realise that once you go beyond your 12-month, 18-month or two-year contract with your electricity provider, the unit price range rockets by different amounts. It is not feasible for me to go through them all but it is in excess of 20% in many cases. That makes an awful difference for a widow or widower on fuel allowance in the context of trying to buy get a few groceries. We all know what has happened grocery prices as well. It makes a real difference in people's lives.

On the business front, while we, the enterprise committee, are discussing this issue, it also has ramifications elsewhere. I referenced the fact that we have topped the chart in Europe a couple of times. It seems that there is something terribly wrong. I accept there are huge capex requirements in the context of the electricity grid in this country. I am not underestimating those. However, consumers are really losing out. I would love to get the views of CCPC on this matter. Will the witnesses indicate what the commission is doing about it?