Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State and the Bill. We can remember the times when electricity supplies failed, not only when I was growing up but also later. In the past 40 or 50 years, we have been very fortunate in that when one turns on the switch one knows there will be electricity available. When one goes abroad one notices the hotels one stays in always have candles beside the beds because they are so used to the supplies failing.

My father had a holiday camp in Skerries and installed a generator in the 1950s because he knew he had to rely on electricity for various reasons. On the odd occasion, when all of Skerries went black and my father's holiday camp had bright lights, it was generally assumed he had some political pull. This was because he was the only person able to have an electricity supply regardless of its availability elsewhere.