Meeting energy costs

NOBODY likes paying bills, but if the cost of the gas, coal and oil burnt to make electricity has gone up, how is that to be paid for?

It is easy to say the ESB should just absorb the cost, but as a state-owned business that is simply to transfer the cost from your electricity bill into your tax bill.

This subsidy will also put at a disadvantage the new independent energy companies that will seek to challenge the semi-state monopoly and force it to operate in a cost-efficient manner.