Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

We did more. This was the first country in Europe to introduce a tax on carbon for those utilities in respect of which there is a windfall tax up to 2012 and we are reallocating the money to industry because we recognise there is a competitiveness agenda which we must support. A number of changes were made. This should be recognised.

Many statistics are being bandied about for different categories of users and so on. There is a range of statistics available. It is complicated stuff. EUROSTAT, the official European institute which collects and collates information from all European member states, sets out, as published in May by Sustainable Energy Ireland in its report, Electricity and Gas Prices in Ireland, the statistics for the Irish domestic electricity consumer, the average Irish household, and they vary. For example, the cost of electricity in a holiday home is higher. Prices are higher in small holiday homes because they only use electricity for a few months of the year. In the case of the average Irish household - approximately 50% fit into this category - they were 2% below the eurozone average after tax, not including purchasing power or taking parity into account and so on. These are the European statistics.