This article is from page 16 of the 2006-10-31 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
Business organisation ISME, has questioned the Government’s commitment to competition, “in light of their policy of protecting Aer Lingus at all costs.”
According to ISME Chief Executive, Mark Fielding, the business community is “perplexed at the hypocrisy of, on the one hand fighting tooth and nail to ensure competition in the air, but on the other preventing competition on the ground through disallowing the break-up of the ESB and not allowing competition in other State controlled sectors of the economy, such as Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus.”
Fielding is claiming that the motive behind the Government’s move is to “protect the interests of the unions as opposed to any belated Pauline conversion to the merits of competition.”
The ISME chief criticised the Minister for Transport, whom he claimed was “loathe to fully deregulate the bus market where the bus licensing system discriminates against private sector operators. Consequently, we are left with an inefficient public transport system that does no justice to the public it serves.”
With electricity costs due to increase by a further 20 per cent in January, Fielding said it “beggars belief that the Government continually refuses to break-up the ESB to generate competition.
“How can a Government that outwardly proclaims to encourage competition, dismiss their own consultants’ recommendations to increase competition and in the process bolster the ESB’s dominant position?”
Fielding called on the Government to “put the same commitment into opening up competition in other parts of the economy as they have belatedly applied to protecting competition, when it suits, in air transport.”.