Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Does the Minister think privatisation of the energy sector has worked? Deregulation happened in the last 25 years. Deregulation and competition were supposed to drive prices down for electricity users but the opposite has happened in Ireland. We had the lowest electricity prices in Europe but now we have one of the highest so something has gone wrong. Private energy companies are doing very well and particularly in the last 18 months. France, which I know uses a lot of nuclear energy, has energy costs that are 50% below those in this State. The bigger question is around our natural resources, our wind energy and all that we have here and how it is being used. Is it for the common good or the good of profiteers? Private enterprise has tried to monopolise that and profit from it. It is not ethically right. We need these resources to be put in the public interest.

On the proliferation of data centres, the State finds itself in extraordinary circumstances. In eight years, data centres will use up to 30% of all the electricity available in the State. It is incredible that this was allowed to happen because of corporate interests and profiteering. I get worried when the Minister starts to talk about blackouts and so on. Why would blackouts happen other than as a result of what the Minister has allowed to happen with data centres?

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