Public Meetings Nationwide:
DublinOctober 19th: Wynns Hotel at 8pm.
Speakers: Bríd Smith TD, Dexter Whitfield(European Services Strategy Unit), Sharon Beder(Author- Power Play: The Fight for Control of World’s Electricity)
GalwayOctober 24th: Áras na nGael at 7pm
Speakers: Paul Murphy TD, Sharon Beder(Author- Power Play: The Fight for Control of World’s Electricity), Adrian Curran(Galway People Before Profit Representative)
Waterford
October 27th: St Patrick’s Community Center, Patrick St at 8pm
Speakers: Eddie Conlon (Dublin Institute of Technology)
Limerick
October 27th: Horse & Hound, Mulgrove St at 7.30pm
Speakers: Gino Kenny TD
Hosted By: Ruairi Fahy(Limerick People Before Profit Representative)
Electricity and energy bills have gone berserk, but the government is just giving a €200 credit before Christmas and a €400 credit afterwards. It will not cover the increase.
We used to have the cheapest electricity in Europe but now we have the dearest. In the 1990s, the ESB had a Not-For-Profit mandate but this was changed By Fianna Fail. They privatised energy production and treated it as a market for profit, rather than a natural monopoly to be run for public value or public good.
In the 1990s the EU sought to break up state-run energy companies across Europe, including the ESB and Bord Gáis.
In 1996 and 1998, the European Union introduced Electricity and Gas Directives, forcing member states to open their energy systems up to investors and sell off power plants and infrastructure to private capitalists.
Fianna Fáil did not seek an Irish derogation for this directive, even though the small size of the Irish market would exacerbate the worst effects of privatisation.
In 1999, Fianna Fail introduced the Electricity Regulation Bill which opened the market to competition. Two years later, they removed the ‘not for profit’ mandate of the ESB.
Public companies that formerly operated on a not-for-profit basis are now forced into a market, requiring them to behave instead like private capitalists by seeking higher rates of profit
The whole industry has been broken up with different companies making and selling electricity and gas for profit.
It is madness.
The government should impose price controls on the energy sector and set the price at a pre-crisis level.
They have the legal power to do this.
This should be immediately followed up with the nationalisation of the energy sector. It should be run by a public company like the ESB- but they should be told to stop making profits and provide cheap, renewable energy.