Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-19
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

The liberalisation of the energy markets across Europe was supposed to benefit consumers. The removal of the ESB’s not-for-profit mandate and the introduction of competition into the market actually resulted across Europe in a 40% increase in energy costs. In Ireland, however, the increase was 267%. What we actually got was competition that led to rampant profiteering by private energy companies. Prices for the consumer did not go down, but up. Is there a recognition that actually having the energy sector driven by profiteering companies has failed and that we need to bring the energy sector back into proper public ownership and run on a not-for-profit basis?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:46+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-19