Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Deputy to his role as spokesman in this area and wish well and also a long stay there. I look forward to working with him and counsel him not to sign any statements prepared over quiet weekends in the Fianna Fáil head office as he did last weekend on "The Frontline" programme because the assertions in that statement about my role were not true.

The Deputy raised a good point in respect of energy prices and particularly the issue of the profits returned for the first six months by the ESB. Obviously it is regrettable that as price takers Ireland is a victim of prices on the oil and gas market. The weakness of the euro against the dollar is a particularly acute reason for the upward trend but there is some misunderstanding about the six-monthly returns by the ESB. I would be as surprised as the Deputy if a similar performance was returned for the second six months of the year. There are very particular accounting reasons that figure was returned for the first six months. It will not, unfortunately, survive until the end of the year. In addition, a significant and far-reaching restructuring programme has been concluded in the ESB which will have to be funded by the company next year.

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