Sean Barrett (Independent)

I support what Senator Kelly has said. I welcome the Minister of State. Níl an Ghaeilge chomh líofa agam agus atá ag an Aire Stáit féin agus ag an Seanadóir Ó Clochartaigh, but it is nice to listen to it. We had a very good debate on this the previous day. The Minister, Deputy Bruton, was quoting Adam Smith and so on. I thought he would come back with much more radical things. This is a serious problem arising from the troika. Senator Kelly mentioned the cost of €4 billion as outlined by Dr. John Fingleton, and I will be talking about that in my own amendments later. There is a Bill due which will amalgamate the National Consumer Agency and the Competition Authority, and it may give us an opportunity to be more radical. The impression we got when the Minster was in the House the previous day was that he was taking on board many comments. They were all good, but he should do more. I was disappointed to see the same Bill come back to us and I would echo those sentiments. Perhaps the Minister of State should relay them to the Minister and the Department.

This is a serious problem. The sheltered sector is targeted by the troika and the IMF and it is doing a lot of damage in the country. I will be referring to it later in my own amendments, but I agree strongly with the general principles that Senator Kelly has outlined. We must have a Competition Authority that is up and about and protecting the consumer. There are far too few penalties for white collar crime in Ireland. People are able to collude with one another, with Departments and with regulators. To take the Minister of State's other area of responsibility, we now know, thanks to PricewaterhouseCoopers, that we had a water system which had an operating expenditure way ahead of Northern Ireland and multiples of what it cost in Scotland. We have to say that the regulator of the water industry in Ireland has not been doing his job up to now. That is true across a wide range of sectors and when we add them all up, the competitiveness of Ireland as a place to do business is seriously reduced.

I welcome what Senator Kelly said. If the Minister of State wants to be more radical, he will find that there will be much support in this House for more radical measures.