Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

——and helping us to reduce our electricity price through the introduction of better competition and a more diverse range of supplies.

The success last year in the setting up of the single electricity market was of fundamental importance in this regard. It is a change from which we can get real efficiencies as we start to operate on an all-island basis in a truly effective manner. That, for people on the lowest incomes, will be important. Anything that brings down our prices in the long run is of benefit to those people.

It is that task that I set as my key goal in Government, to protect the Irish people from what I see as an uncertain and highly volatile energy future by improving the affordability of energy, by improving the efficiency by which they use energy and increasing the diversity of supply so that we are not exposed to further price increases.

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