Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

This €5 increase was announced last year in the budget. Unfortunate older people in fear for their health, living in poor, damp circumstances with inadequate heating and fearful of how they can survive a difficult winter receive a statement to the effect that their fuel allowance has been increased by €5.

Is the Taoiseach happy with a situation whereby outrageous, disproportionate price increases are permitted in order to increase profits in the energy sector to attract in new entrants in order to provide competition to keep prices down? That is the argument. In order to keep prices down we must let them rip up to 34% in gas, and in electricity to 19.4% for domestic use, 19.6% for small and medium enterprises and 21% for large companies. That is the official position. The argument made by the ESB and the gas company is that we must let profits rip to attract new entrants.

This country has gone mad on ideological competition. The authority set up to police it does not do its job. It is great at lecturing and hectoring and so on but when did it intervene to have a major hit against any of the collusive and other activity of significant players in this marketplace? This is becoming an intolerably high-priced environment and older people and social welfare recipients are the ones at the bottom of the ladder who will suffer most.

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