Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I thank the Deputy for his support on this because the Department is a major purchaser of fuel in the sense of paying for people's fuel, electricity and gas bills but we do not get discounts. The view was taken quite a long time ago by the Competition Authority that the Department did not have status in regard to negotiation. We are currently negotiating it. However, it may be necessary to put it out to tender and in that way achieve a reduction because given all of the reductions other businesses have made, it is more than appropriate that the big utility companies should recognise the difficulty of the economic position the country finds itself in, step up to the plate and offer saving measures to the Department. It must be remembered that when we pay the fuel allowances, ESB bills and so on there is no bad debt experience. The big utility companies are in the newspapers every other week regarding their difficulty with bad debts. They do not experience that with the Department.

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