Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

Garret used say that the level of rise in inflation is falling. Of course, every one scratched their heads. Subsequently, they all went out and voted against the Government, which included my party, and we had one desperate election count in 1987 as a result.

It is astonishing, once again, that this critical energy legislation has no mechanism to facilitate the needs of consumers, both householders and business. The question which must be asked again, therefore, is for whom is the SEM being constructed if not to give a secure, reliable and cheap as possible energy supply for households and businesses throughout this island.

I intend to bring forward an amendment to section 4, which deals with the establishment of the single electricity market committee to ensure that consumers and businesses, the people for whom the SEM was constructed to benefit, are finally given a proper voice within this new extremely powerful committee that will be the key mechanism for regulating the new SEM between the two regulators and to make sure that consumers and businesses are finally properly represented within the institutional structure of CER.

Like other Deputies, I went back to the 1999 Electricity Regulation Act, which of course set up CER. While it is quite interesting that, under the functions of CER, it refers to the role of the consumers, over seven years all that was done for them is that they have been gouged repeatedly, particularly by this Government since 2002.

See this speech in context