Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I have been very economical in comparison with some of what I heard in earlier discussions.

How we invest in key areas like developing our renewable energy resources is an important question, even more so as a result of the current crisis. It is a mistake to cling on to the belief that we have to kowtow to international investors in order to get the level of investment we need to do things. I do not accept that argument. I know it is what the Minister thinks and it has been the consensus for approximately four decades since the neoliberal revolution, for want of a better word. We are seeing the bitter fruits of that in the energy crisis that we are now facing. These private companies literally have countries over a barrel - a barrel of oil or a supply of gas. That is a very bad position to be in. It is even more reprehensible that, in trying to respond to the current unprecedented crisis by rightly saying that we have to develop our own renewable energy resources so that we will not be over a barrel to these companies, we are going to do so by handing over all the means of producing renewable energy to private companies. It is utterly reprehensible that offshore wind development is overwhelmingly going to be to the benefit of private companies or, in some cases, state companies from other states. For example, a French state company could benefit more than our own State enterprises. The mind boggles that we could do this, but it is what we are doing.

The mind also boggles at the fact that we have achieved no benefit at all for the consumer from the significant increase in the production of domestic renewable energy. Have prices decreased since we expanded to the point of 30% of the electricity produced in this country being domestic renewable energy? Has that reduced the cost of electricity by a single cent? No. Instead, the cost has increased consistently since we deregulated and privatised the market. In fact, when we deregulated and began to privatise and marketise, the ESB had to increase its prices immediately because it would have been competitively unfair on the poor private sector for the ESB to be giving people cheap electricity. That is what happened. Looking back at the speeches and justifications for removing the not-for-profit mandate from the ESB, they were wall-to-wall ideological claptrap about how marketising and introducing competition in the sector would benefit the consumer and reduce prices.

Amazingly, I heard the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, repeating this claptrap in the Dáil in recent weeks. Even with the cost of energy going through the roof, he still maintained that competition would benefit the consumer. I asked myself whether this person was living on the same planet as me, given that the exact opposite had been happening. There is no benefit to the consumer from us developing our own renewable energy resources. None. Zero. Zilch.

I am for reversing the trend of the past four decades of progressively privatising what used to be called in the old parlance the commanding heights of the economy, those elements that are critical to the functioning of a society, for example, energy, telecommunications, public transport and so forth. I will not go through the entire list, but this trend has been extremely damaging.

We are seeing the bitter fruits of all of that in a number of areas right now. That is it. It is just not true to say that if you do it in the way we are suggesting - if the State takes the lead in these things - you will not be able to get assistance where you may need it, either in terms of expertise or some investment from outside. We built Ardnacrusha ourselves. We got assistance from Siemens and it got something out of it, but we did not flipping hand over the whole thing to them. Norway got outside assistance from those with expertise in fossil fuels to develop its oil production but it made sure that it was done through a State company and that those making an input from outside, while being remunerated to some degree, were not in control. Norway used its co-operation with external investment to ensure it built up state industry and enterprise so that the vast majority of the benefits went to Norway. That is not what is happening here.