Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I imagine if a focus group were to tell Fianna Fáil there were votes in it, a significant number of socialists would emerge to support their leader.

As an environmentalist, I believe we should take the environment into consideration when deciding policy. This means I would like to see the market taking such issues as carbon emissions and pollution into account. I also, however, believe in the market. I am a social democrat in that I believe the citizens of the State have the right to organise their own health, education and other social services and to gain on the social democratic tradition of the last 150 years which has brought us so many civilised benefits. At the same time, I want the market to provide the solutions and quality of life that we in this country deserve.

For a market to function, there must be competition. The Green Party's objective is to ensure a situation where there is a large number of entrants competing effectively against each other. The position of the parties opposite on this issue is sometimes fraudulent. Members of the Progressive Democrats Party, the junior partner in Government, are particularly fraudulent and arrogant as they puff out their chests and proclaim themselves the great champions of competition. The reality, however, is that their actions and those whom they support indicate they are anything but champions in this regard. As my colleague Deputy Boyle has observed on a number of occasions, the business of that party is corporate social welfare. The larger the corporation, the greater the welfare the Progressive Democrats is eager to offer.

Deputy Hogan did well in listing the examples in this regard. For example, a large monopoly supplier in the building industry, such as Cement Roadstone Holdings, CRH, has nothing to fear in terms of competition or the watchful eye of the Progressive Democrats doing anything that might disturb its business. One can be certain that the Competition Authority would fail in any possible investigation as to why we are victims of the massive rip-off involved in paying such high prices for the basic building blocks of our building industry. Neither have AIB and Bank of Ireland anything to fear from the proud gentleman and ladies of the Progressive Democrats Party, who blindly ignore the massive rip-off that has occurred because of that cosy cartel to whom we pay our mortgages. Likewise, ESB, Eircom or any other large monopoly company has nothing to fear from the Progressive Democrats and the Competition Authority it has set up.

Under this Government, the public has been ripped off in the provision of basic services. My party applauds and supports Fine Gael's motion to reform the Competition Act 2002 and highlight the lack of competition.

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