John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I am glad to contribute to the debate on this motion and I commend Deputy Coveney on bringing it before the House and for continuing to highlight the burden of some of the highest energy prices in Europe being carried by the households and business sector of this country. I also congratulate Deputy Coveney for pressurising the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to come out, even at this late stage, to indicate a double digit reduction in electricity prices this year. The question which everybody is asking is why it has taken so long to recognise this. It should have happened months ago.

I will consider the problem of high energy prices in Ireland through the eyes of the taxpayer. Over recent days, we listened to the debate on the economic trouble in which the country is and the global recession and we heard that global conditions caused the problems we have here. People wonder why there is a disconnect between the Government or the people running the country and the ordinary people. We need look no further than our energy prices to see the slowness to react to changes on the world market. As the price of oil and gas rocketed last summer, the energy regulator sanctioned increases of 20% in gas prices and 17.5% in electricity prices with the add-on that there would be similar increases in January.

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