Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

The organisation of the single electricity market committee is detailed in Schedule IA but there are a number of aspects of that to which I intend to return with amendments.

The energy market is increasingly regulator-led and, therefore, the provisions for regulating the SEM committee are of the greatest importance.

As I stated, section 4 deals with the establishment of the new single electricity market committee, which will be extremely powerful. Little detail has been provided, either in the Minister of State's speech or in the Bill, on the composition and role of the new SEM. Will the Minister of State explain how exactly he intends to appoint people to the committee?

There also remain serious questions over the interaction of the Republic's and the North's regulators on key matters. For instance, who will decide if a decision will adversely affect citizens in the North or vice versa? Section 9BC(2)(e) of the new Bill specifies "the need to avoid unfair discrimination" between Northern Irish and Republic of Ireland consumers, but exactly how will that be done and how will we ensure that this will progress and that the best lowest price, for both, will be available?

Of particular importance in the new single electricity market will be the relationship of CER to the Northern Ireland regulator, NIR, and of both of them with the two grid operators, EirGrid and SONI, because it seems likely that the establishment of a single market will also lead inevitably to a single regulator. Does the Minister of State agree that the 2004 report states in effect that one of the aims will be to have a single regulator? If there is one market, how can there be two regulators? This SEM committee, as the official's briefing document seems to indicate, will at some stage become the regulator for the all-island market.

I have been extremely critical in this House, as the Minister of State might recall, on the performance of the Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, and his predecessor, Deputy Dermot Ahern, in the use of policy directives. Section 10, amendment 10A of the Act of 1999, is ambiguous and unclear in this regard. Although the role of the independent regulator, CER, within the context of the liberalised gas and electricity market is generally accepted, most observers with a keen interest in energy matters and a great concern for securing a well maintained energy system in the long term understand the critical need for the Minister to set clear targets on investment in the network, energy security, energy sustainability, energy and fuel poverty and retail and wholesale pricing, and then delegate these targets to CER for implementation. The House will recall that the Minister helpfully accepted my amendment to that effect in the Energy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.

One of the key driving forces of the European Union has been the creation of the liberalised Internal Market, but it seems that there is a danger. Earlier this year, I read an article by the renowned Oxford University economist and energy expert, Mr. Dieter Helm. Both the Acting Chairperson, Deputy Ardagh, and the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, will remember Mr. Helm because he addressed the optimistically named Fianna Fáil think-in on energy matters earlier this year in Westport.

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