Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

-----and the third largest reduction in electricity prices for both business and householders. We benefited most and got the biggest reduction. In the process, having brought in all the energy companies, having listened to everybody and talked to them in great detail, it became absolutely clear to me that we now have a competitive market in electricity supply. For some years we have had one for the large energy users and are now coming to the point, with the introduction of companies into the retail residential side, of having a competitive market in electricity across the market in this country. That works. It brings down prices and drives efficiencies. It delivers better investments where the business communities take the risk in a free and competitive market. A number of companies are acting in this, several of which are real-scale international companies as well as our own domestic companies.

I advise Fine Gael to be careful. Some of the populist measures that may look good in the press might not work out and would leave us with a distortionary effect that would mess up what clearly is a working system.

There is a similar regulatory structure in communications which took a similar sort of timeframe to establish. Just as CER is doing its job well on the energy side, ComReg is doing a very effective job in communications, in difficult circumstances. Again, there are legacy issues where some of our utilities went through very poor ownership structures and the taking out of many of the assets. It has not been easy. Again, we have been playing catch-up because of some of those legacy issues but I stand and support and have worked with the regulator in the regulatory policy we have pursued which I believe is working. It is based on competition and on being technology neutral with different companies. We are not the best at calling which technology will work but we can set the market conditions that allow others to employ technology and try to win the customer base.

We are starting to see this. As I said, we are catching up and still must go further and faster but if one looks at what is happening on the back of that regulatory process, one sees that prices are coming down. There are consistent reductions in prices for almost all users. We must push further with our European colleagues. However, in difficult times, our services are being improved on the back of competitive markets. There was the decision by cable companies to start running out 100 megabyte connectivity on a very widespread basis in this country. There was the decision by Eircom to start making investments in very difficult times when it has a great number of different challenges. However, the company knows it is in a competitive market, where if it does not go out and win the customer with faster speeds and better products, it will lose the customer to someone else and, therefore, we are seeing that it, too, is committing to investment in next-generation access. There have been very significant developments this year in what is called local loop unbundling. This is opening up more competitive and more open access markets where there is a real wholesale option. It is happening on the back of a good competitive regulatory market system.

I was in Europe on Monday at a meeting of the Council of Ministers. The message was not to mess with the regulatory systems, which are working and delivering for the country. We should be careful with some of the simple policy approaches; the approach taken in the regulatory system might not grab headlines easily but it works for the people of the country.

The Opposition might argue that it is more concerned with other Government spending. In my Department we have met the target in terms of bringing down the staff levels to what they were meant to be under the employment control framework. We are keeping a very tight ship and I can see the public servants in my Department working hard. It is important that this is known because it is an easy story to pit the private sector against the public sector. I do not see that in my own Department and, by and large, I see people working hard in a dedicated fashion to keep tight control of budgets. This is happening in my Department and across the public service because people currently have an eye on the public interest and on ensuring that we do not waste money or overspend.

I mentioned RTE and will take it as an example. There is a new regulatory system with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland but even before it was up and running in a new role we could see what happened on the ground. In 2009, RTE saw an 18% reduction in operating costs, a 9% reduction in personnel costs and a 26% reduction in other costs. That effort is driven by management and unions responding to the economic crisis together; they saw revenues drop and realised that the licence fee and other income would not be certain so they carried out reallocations. These are real cost savings keeping RTE above the water.

I met the chief executive of An Post, Mr. Donal Connell, today and he is doing a fine job. He said it has been a tough operating environment, with revenues down and mail volume seeing a decrease in the order of 10%. The company is keeping its nose above the water and staying in the black by keeping its costs down, being flexible and delivering the required efficiencies.

Rather than me jumping in like Boy Wonder to solve the difficulties of An Post, RTE, the ESB, Bord Gáis or any other companies, we have a good system that is driving efficiencies and seeking improved performance in our economy. This should be replicated across the board because we are in a difficult economic position where competitiveness matters.

I regret that Deputy Byrne was not able to contribute but I welcome the opportunity to give some examples of what is going on in the real world under this Government. We are driving competitiveness to the nth degree through clever policy making rather than populist measures that may grab the headlines but which would not do the job.

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