Noel O'Flynn (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Bill. Since the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources was established at the commencement of this Dáil, two Ministers and three Ministers of State have been appointed to the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. Deputy Broughan, Deputy Ryan and I have been committee members since October 2002. While I do not take away from the contribution of other committee members, we are the longest serving members and we hold a certain responsibility because we have detailed knowledge of the energy issues faced by the State.

On 25 occasions over two years the committee dealt with energy and natural resources issues. We received presentations from the Department, the current Minister and his predecessor on five occasions, the Commission on Energy Regulation on four occasions, Sustainable Energy Ireland on three occasions, the ESB on three occasions, Airtricity, the Irish Wind Energy Association, Meitheal na Gaoithe, Viridian Power and Energy, ESB National Grid, Bord Gáis, Cork City Council, Cork City Energy Agency, Coillte, COFORD, Teagasc, Clearpower Limited, the IFA, the Irish Bioenergy Association, Burton Bioenergy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Economic and Social Research Institute, IBEC, Dr. Brian Ó Gallachóir of UCC, Mr. Mark O'Malley of UCD, Bord na Móna, Ballina Chamber of Commerce, the Northern Ireland Authority for Energy Regulation, Mr. Colin Campbell and Mr. Chris Skrebowski on global oil production, the Bantry Concerned Action Group on difficulties of getting connections to the national grid, the Consumers Association of Ireland, Professor Awerbuch, an energy economist, Mr. Paul Hunt, a UK-based energy consultant, Ms. Anne Grete Holmsgaard of the Danish Parliament and concluding with the European Commissioner for Energy, Andris Piebalgs.

We expect to publish our report shortly. We had a meeting today and we are finalising the recommendations. I hope that we can have consensus, even though there are different views within the committee. I hope to publish the report based on the findings and the public hearings of the committee over the past two years. I hope it will be received by the Department and the Minister and that the recommendations form part of the policy decisions to be made in the future.

There are major energy issues facing Ireland. When he recently met the committee, Commissioner Piebalgs identified the six main issues facing Europe, namely, fully competitive energy markets in Europe, security of supply, energy mix, a climate change goal, technology and external energy policy. If these are the concerns of Europe, then they must be the concerns of Ireland. Some of these are being addressed in this Bill and I welcome the moves to facilitate full gas market opening, the underpinning of the all-island energy market, granting power to the Minister to provide for the taking of emergency measures by ministerial order in the event of a sudden crisis in the energy market, the conferring of the power on the Minister to issue policy directions to the CER, the expansion of the functions of the CER and the removal of the legislative constraints to facilitate regulated electricity interconnection not owned by the ESB.

However, these last few points give rise to a concern of mine about regulation. We set up the CER and a major thrust of this Bill is the correction of deficiencies in the workings of regulation. Regulation is here to stay, be that as an EU-imposed need to have regulation or a Government move to have regulation. Since I was elected to the Dáil we have moved to regulate all sorts of operations. We have a financial regulator, an aviation regulator and ComReg to regulate the telecom sector. We are awash with regulators and every time I hear of a proposal to set up a regulator, I believe we are inventing the wheel all over again. Surely it is not beyond our ability to have joined-up thinking on regulation and produce a generic model for regulation regardless of the sector or industry that is being regulated. For such a model of generic regulation all that is needed is to bolt on the specifics that are relevant to that industry or sector.

No legislative proposal to set up a regulator should come before this House where that legislation does not give the Minister the ability to issue a policy direction to the regulator being set up. After all, that is one of the issues we are dealing with in this Bill and the Minister has the power to issue policy direction for ComReg. This applies not only to the areas under the remit of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources but also to any regulator that may be established in future or that has already been established.

For the health, transport or sports sectors, we should have one model of regulation and implement this across all areas of Government and only add on to this base model of regulation the specifics relative to the area being regulated. I suggest that this could also apply to the setting up of any ombudsman. In this instance, we should also have a generic model that has the same standards across any office where there is an ombudsman with only the specifics having to be added on. I am tired of constantly designing the wheel as if we were living in a land where everyone was ignorant of its invention.

This leads me on to another concern of mine, which is the working of the regulatory impact analysis or assessment. I welcome the introduction and I look forward to the full implementation of the regulatory impact analysis to every legislative proposal, be it primary legislation in the Bills that come before this House or in statutory instruments. The Taoiseach is to be congratulated for his initiative. I want to see the day when the regulatory impact analysis is embedded in the DNA of the entire Civil and public service. I use the phrase "embedded in the DNA" because I first came across it when a member of staff in the Department of the Taoiseach made a presentation to the joint committee.

I would like to see the RIA process expanded to include an impact assessment of the effectiveness of the regulation regime. Therefore, when a Bill has passed Second Stage and is referred to a select committee, that committee could review the RIA before it considers the Bill on Committee Stage. A legislative process such as a committee reviewing an RIA would have been of enormous benefit in the case of the recent Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Bill 2005 which caused so much concern and division in this House and in the fishing industry.

I commend this Bill and look forward to a good debate when it is referred to the committee. I hope the Government takes on board the comments I have made about a generic model of regulation and the regulatory impact analysis.

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