Vol. 434 No. 2
326 Mr. Noonan (Limerick East) asked the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the ESB uses its billing system to promote and develop the credit sales of electrical goods; his views on whether this constitutes unfair competition with the private sector; and the plans, if any, he has to ensure that persons who retail electrical goods in the private sector are not subject to unfair competition.
My colleague, the Minister for Enterprise and Employment has responsibility in the area of competition. The operation of ESB's retailing activities was examined by the Director of Consumer Affairs and Fair Trade, who reported in 1990 to the then Minister for Industry and Commerce. In that report, the director concluded that the ESB were not operating unfairly to the detriment of its competitors in using the billing system as a means of collecting repayments on credit purchases of retail goods. The director did recommend that steps be taken to allow customers to distinguish between debts due for electricity and debts due in respect of sale of appliances.
In line with this recommendation a new format invoice was introduced in 1992 to distinguish clearly between payment due for supply and instalments due for credit purchases. In addition, the promotion of electrical appliance sale was confined to three billing periods annually.
I believe these changes represent a reasonable balance between the needs of the consumers, and other appliance retailers.
