Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The House will have noticed today that the first major decision of the recently partially privatised Aer Lingus was to increase prices for luggage and other items. I make the point to remind Senators that some in the House argued that its privatisation would make the industry more competitive and drive prices down. When we set up the new structures in Eircom we had great hopes for what it would achieve but finished up with a duopoly instead of a monopoly and a couple of dozen new multimillionaires, as well as the most expensive call costs in Europe.