Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

The Minister of State is not being very accommodating. I thought he would make sweeping changes and recognise the good ideas proposed. The three amendments in question all relate to a specific part of what we feel should be covered in this new single market.

The purpose of the words "as may, from time to time, be determined by the Minister" in amendment No. 19, as mentioned by the Minister of State, is to indicate who is in control. Will we have to wait, as in recent weeks, for a decision from the regulator? He had the flu and we had to wait until it had passed for a decision to be made. Policy should always be determined by the Minister, regardless of what anyone else says, including the European transposition and so on. We cannot sit easily with a situation whereby regulation takes precedence over policy. Policy is required within this State.

There is a vast difference between how energy supply, demand and transmission is conducted here and in the rest of Europe. This is, effectively, the only island involved as Britain has a tunnel to the mainland that is somewhat better than the tunnel we have here. I understand that services are transmissible via the tunnel.

It is easier to regulate in mainland Europe as it concerns a far larger area and many systems of transmission are already in place. Regulators may represent a better method for approaching this issue because there are many different authorities that can be brought together. Ireland's position is different and the regulatory system, as transposed into Irish law, is flawed and will leave us vulnerable. So far we have not had a negative experience but if there was a sharp cold snap and there were difficulties with supply, regulation, transmission and so on, would we sit by and leave everything to the regulator until he or she decided the problem could be resolved? At this point there must be recourse to Government policy. After all, who are the elected representatives and who will be accountable?

Suppose there was an outage of the nature that affected the telecom industry in recent weeks. There is no use saying it could not happen; Deputy Broughan has already pointed out that it can happen. There is a dramatic difference between energy requirements in cold weather and otherwise. Given these circumstances it is time to introduce to this Bill an indication from the Minister of State that we intend to maintain responsibility for policy, rather than divest ourselves of all control.

For all of the regulation on the Continent there were many power outages around Europe last summer, in Spain, Italy and elsewhere. If it can happen there it can happen as easily here, and ours is a far colder climate.

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