The 20 per cent increase in ESB charges was blamed yesterday on the "questionable policy of attempting to create artificial competition in the electricity market" as well as Ireland's very high dependence on imported oil.
Ictu general secretary David Begg also said the Competition Authority was "uncaring and incompetent" in allowing Statoil's Irish operations to be taken over by Topaz and said control of competition policy had been "ceded to liberal zealots".
Addressing an energy conference in Dublin, he contrasted how this "huge commercial takeover" had been allowed to proceed by default with the Competition Authority's refusal to permit poorly-paid voice-over artists to engage in collective bargaining.
Mr Begg said he "abhorred" the "uncaring and incompetent" manner in which the authority went about its business and said he was opposed to it having any role in the Irish electricity market. "I have no confidence in these people," he declared.
In Europe as well as at home, control of competition policy had been "effectively ceded to liberal zealots", he claimed. As a result, the European electricity market was now dominated by three major companies "and we have higher prices in Ireland".
"Security of supply of energy is the most significant challenge we face. The logic of this demands that ESB remains a fully-integrated entity in public ownership so that it can continue, as it has successfully done for 80 years, to be an instrument of public policy."
Jerry Shanahan, national officer of the Amicus trade union, which organised the conference, said completion of the EU Single Electricity Market would bring "intense competition and more pressure on our members" in the ESB and other energy suppliers.
Though the ESB would invest an average of €1 billion per annum over the next five years in upgrading the system and no private company would match this, its share of the electricity generation market will fall below 45 per cent in 2006, he said.
However, Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources Noel Dempsey said an all-island approach to energy policy would "create economies of scale to the benefit of consumers and business on both sides of the Border". This would be underpinned by a second North-South interconnector, due to be operating by 2012.
