Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I congratulate my colleague, Deputy Coveney, who has a great personal interest in this topic.

I consider this country's lack of competitiveness in the economy to be the ruination of the State. I recall the 1990s when our competitiveness in terms of industrial development and output was as good as that in the best of countries. The products we exported abroad were at a premium but then what can only be termed the curse of the building boom camouflaged the system of Government and the entire economy. The Government took its eye off the ball because it did not have to look for money. If anything was wrong with the economy the money was available to spend on it. I do not have time to outline all the daft things the Government paid for on which we did not get any return. If the money was not available, no sane Government would get involved with PPARS, electronic voting machines and so on. If a government was short of money, those are the areas in which it would not get involved but this Government did because it knew the money would be coming into the coffers the next month.

The Government's big sin, and what a sin it was in terms of what we heard earlier in this House, is that it never thought the day would come when somebody would have to pay for that foolishness. As Members are aware, on the floor of this House a few hours ago the Taoiseach let it be known that the hardest working couples in the country, two people working and bringing in approximately €45,000 each, are now €10,000 worse off. That is the penalty they will pay for what the Government did wrong in the past ten years. We must now get back to competition. That is the reason this motion is so important. There is no other way for this country to proceed other than to trade and market our way out of the problem we now face.

I will make two points to the Minister, Deputy Ryan, who, in fairness, handles some aspects of his Ministry very well. There are aspects I cannot grasp, however, and if I cannot grasp them 3.5 million other people in the country cannot grasp them either. Several of my colleagues referred to this issue. I will refer briefly to petrol and diesel prices before I deal with the price of gas and electricity.

I recall when crude oil was $147 a barrel. Everyone remembers that, as we all remember where we were when President John F. Kennedy was shot. We will always remember the price of a barrel of crude oil on that day because we had never seen anything like it. The price displayed at my filling station on that day was €1.35, and I took that to mean that €1.35 equated to a crude oil barrel price of $147. When the price of a barrel of crude oil reduced to $40 I assumed the basic price of petrol and diesel would have reduced below 80 cent.

Increasingly, I have very little time for regulators. There was a time I thought they were a good idea but for whatever reason bank regulators and energy regulators do not appear to be keeping pace with what we want in the economy. That is an area the Minister must deal with quickly. Regardless of what the Russians or anybody else does, when the price of crude oil is $40 or $50 a barrel, nobody should be paying more than 80 or 85 cent at the pumps.

The ESB needs a major dose of reality. It is a great company but at this stage it is just too costly. We cannot afford it and whatever has to be done must be done.

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