Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

These are essentially price guarantees. I come back to my earlier point. There is a public interest in ensuring we produce renewables and that this occurs in our system. Effectively, it is a price guarantee. The oversight the Deputy is calling for is to ensure the money that comes out of the fruits, so to speak, of the PSO achieve what it needs to achieve, and I am satisfied that it does. I am satisfied that this does no more than what it says on the tin, which is effectively to be a price guarantee for these companies. It is another issue. We could have a general debate about private sector bad, public sector good, and I am always interested in participating in it. We will not nationalise all of these companies, much as the Deputy might like us to do. That is not realistic, but we can have the debate. I welcome the Deputy raising this issue.

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