Madam,- I see (your report of June 20th) that Minister for Natural Resources Noel Dempsey is determined to make the same mistake with the ESB as was made with Telecom Éireann/Eircom, viz, to retain an anti-competitive, anti-consumer monopoly in place.
In contrast to much of the misguided commentary on Eircom, the truth about the Eircom problem is not primarily to do with privatisation or with ownership, but with the fact that it was and, with the assistance of the regulator, remains, a monopoly.
And if there's one thing worse than a publicly owned monopoly, it's a private monopoly. Privatisation per se is useless, unless it opens up competition.
The only reason ownership is a factor is that it's difficult to achieve an open, competitive market when the dominant player is publicly owned. Public sector unions and the politicians' aversion to redundancies ensure that.
Since the principal lesson from the Eircom experience is that what's needed, in the interests of consumer and taxpayer, is an open, competitive market, the principal objective of Government policy in the energy sector must be to open it up.
That cannot be achieved if the ESB continues to dominate the market; hence the necessity to break the ESB up.
The Minister's reasoning for retaining the ESB in its current form amounts essentially to the old national champion argument. That is, to put it bluntly, a licence to exploit the consumer.
Governments, unless they're forced to, don't perform radical restructuring on public assets, no matter how good it would be for the consumer.
And that's why we'll continue to have an energy problem. - Yours, etc,
NORMAN STEWART, Seapark, Malahide, Co Dublin.