Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute on the Energy Bill 2016, which has its origins in an earlier Energy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. I have long called for the reform of the Commission for Energy Regulation, CER, but I am strongly opposed to the inclusion of water in the CER's remit and believe the additional powers being given to it, while welcome, may do little to improve competition in the energy sector. In recent Dáil terms I have been an outspoken critic of the weakness of the CER and its lack of action over many years on price transparency and market concentration in energy. The renaming of the CER as the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, provided for in this Bill, seems just an administrative step purely due to the inclusion of the regulation of water services in its remit. Apart from the name change, what will the Bill do to actually strengthen the CER's market regulatory power? There is no provision to include, for example, motor and heating oil in the remit of the CER, despite the fact many of the complaints made by our constituents over the years relate to the failure of oil companies to promptly pass on falling oil and gas wholesale prices to consumers while, of course, any higher spikes in the prices of these fuels were immediately passed on to drivers and households.

The neoliberal model of privatising essential services and turning citizens into customers for those services, pioneered in the United States and the United Kingdom from the early 1980s, is reflected in section 4, or Part 2, of this Bill. The Water Services Act 2013, which I fiercely opposed, expanded the CER's remit to include the so-called "economic regulation of water services". Section 4 now reiterates that change in the alteration to the new title of Commission of Regulation of Utilities, CRU. Like the Water Services Act, this change of role is predicated on the future privatisation of water supplies. The fact the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil Administration, which we now have in this Dáil, has strongly retained the Irish Water company model shows that, despite their protestations, these parties both have future plans to privatise domestic and commercial water supplies. The experience of the gas, electricity and oil markets is clearly to be replicated in water, in the first instance through Irish Water.

We recall how the Fine Gael and Labour Party Government sold Bord Gáis Eireann at the earliest opportunity and retained only the pipework with Ervia, and how the same Government ended our last foothold in a national airline with the sale of Aer Lingus.

I welcome section 5 in Part 3 covering the power to carry out investigations and impose administrative sanction whereby the powers of the commission will be enhanced. The Commission for Energy Regulation, CER, may revoke a licence and the Bill provides for further administrative sanctions, such as the seeking of High Court compliance orders and the imposition of fines. Our constituents will ask why the powers are only enhanced to extend to administrative sanctions and why clear criminal sanctions for company principals are not applied where market fixing or price gouging is occurring.

The new sections 56 and 58, also under Part 3, amend the 1999 Act and allow for the provision of the appointment of inspectors and their powers. The new sections 59 through to 66 provide for the action which must be undertaken by these inspectors once they have completed their investigations, as well as the action arising therefrom. Section 59 provides for the completion of the draft investigation report, on which the body being investigated will have the opportunity to make submissions. The inspector, of course, cannot make any recommendations on the imposition of sanctions. The subsequent sections provide for oral hearings, court procedures and appeals, and the new section 66 provides for the power to impose administrative sanctions. Again, I wonder why these are only administrative. If there is clear evidence of price fixing or other interference with energy markets, why is there not provision for sanctions under criminal law?

We must ask whether the CER has ever been fit for purpose. When the Minister was on the Opposition side of the House, he sometimes questioned some of the decisions made by the CER. On the positive side for the CER, particularly since critical contributions have been made by the Minister and me over the years, more information is being provided to us regularly with regard to how decisions are made. The CER has failed to regulate price gouging and in the previous Dáil I called for its abolition and to start again. At the very least, the regulation of the energy sector requires a total relaunch and rebranding. Now the CER has been given a totally unnecessary role in the disastrous mismanagement of Irish Water.

Irish consumers have had to endure huge increases in electricity and gas prices during the years, and a recent EUROSTAT report showed we had the third highest energy prices in the European Union. I believe the Minister has said it is the second highest in some areas of energy, because when EU taxes and levies are disregarded in the EU-wide country comparison, Ireland comes out at second highest. While our lack of indigenous energy and the burdensome public service obligation, PSO, levy to stimulate production of renewable energy have played significant roles in our high energy prices, the existing regulator has simply failed in its primary function of invigilating Irish energy markets. As a result, Ireland continues to have a significant cohort of citizens suffering energy poverty each winter. When I was an energy spokesperson for another party in the House-----

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