Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It appears the Minister and his party were frightened by the imposition of a standing charge and the costs to the consumer associated with that. If he compares the costs and the price that was expected then when that was in place, he replaced it with a greater price; he had gone totally and absolutely volumetric now. Heading down the road of full cost recovery, there will be no alternative and the only way this train will have to come to a halt is by privatisation. That will be another Damascus moment for the Labour Party to go with everything else that went before. As I said to the Minister, he seems to have addressed the rot in regard to the promises that he will be making, considering that he has learned his lesson in regard to the Tesco ads. However, Fine Gael has not and we are back to the old tricks that we heard previously in regard to Roscommon. Here is an opportunity for the Minister, his colleagues and his party members to address an issue that is causing great distress. It can be addressed very simply, fairly and adequately with this Bill.

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