Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I support the call for the Minister to have powers of oversight in this issue. With electricity prices we have seen how a regulator can have too much control for the sake of competition and attracting people from outside the country. Regulators are not elected and accountable to the people in the same way as a Minister. There should be some checks and balances built into the legislation to ensure decisions made by ComReg have appropriate oversight from the Dáil given that the regulator is not democratically accountable. To that end I suggest there should be an appropriate appeals mechanism built into the legislation to allow decisions made by the regulator to be challenged. I support the other Senators on the issue.