Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)

Go raibh maith agat a Leas-Cheann Comhairle agus fáiltím roimh an deis seo chun labhairt ar an rún tábhachtach seo.

Governments throughout the world have privatised electricity utilities since the mid-1990s. In most cases this has led to increases in the price of electricity. It has also led to a series of black-outs from California to Buenos Aires and Auckland and to Governments having to bail out electricity companies in California and Britain. It has led to electricity rationing in Brazil and the point where electricity has now become too expensive for millions of people from India to South Africa. Owing to the centrality of the electricity product to the whole economy, it has also meant that privately-owned electricity companies are able to exert massive influence on governments. It has further meant that the planning function of electricity authorities, which once ensured adequate generating reserves for times of peak demand and kept infrastructure up to date in developed countries, has been abandoned due to market forces. As these updates have not happened, blackouts are more likely to happen.

It is interesting that much of the privatisation in the last two decades was a result of neoliberalism, Reaganomics and Thatcherite policies. This Washington consensus was often imposed on developing nations by the World Bank and the IMF as a condition of their loans. The view was that the free market would lead to a cheaper product, but the reality is different. Publicly-owned electricity enterprises have consistently provided electricity at no greater cost than privately-owned enterprises and often at a lower cost and in a much more stable background.

The intention of the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to sell off a share in the ESB is tantamount to State inflicted vandalism on one of the corner stones of the economy.

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