Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

In the past two budgets, the Minister for Finance gave exceptionally large increases to those on social welfare payments to bring them to a level discussed at the partnership talks. It is our position to continue this. For the over 630,000 people who are vulnerable and include the elderly, rather than wait until the budget we moved immediately to protect them on the calculation given by the regulator for gas and electricity increases.

Obviously, pension issues arise in the budget. Deputy Rabbitte is correct that the regulator makes a decision once a year. From the mid 1980s until 2002, there was only one increase in energy costs. The current system is that the regulator examines it over a year, based on the projections and accounts of BGE and the ESB. There are pluses and minuses to such a system. In the UK there were 13 price increases this year while we had one. In comparison to the UK, Npower increased prices by 30.8%, Scottish Power averaged 34.6% and Powergen, 24.4%.

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