Next month, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications will close its consultation process on whether to allow private companies to run private electricity wires. If the plans go ahead, private companies will be able to install, operate and own private electricity infrastructure for the first time since 1927, re-installing a system developed in the Victorian era.
When considering such a major change in our electricity and energy infrastructure, it is worth looking back at what the Irish state inherited a century ago. The wonder and awe delivered by electric light and power in the 18th and 19th centuries still captivates today in films such as The Prestige and The Illusionist. The era has been idealised as an age of boundless, stateless invention driven by competitive individuals: eccentric inventors, private businesses and their gentlemen patrons. Little wonder that Elon Musk named his electric car company after the futurist engineer Nikola Tesla.
But the reality of electricity in everyday life was quite different. In the cities and towns of Victorian Britain, gas lighting and power from coal resulted in mysterious deaths, as well as giant and deadly explosions. Competition favoured the unscrupulous. Different private companies routinely dug up public streets to lay unruly and unregulated gas pipelines. These companies would siphon gas off from one another or cut costs in pipe-laying, resulting in further leaks and explosions.
Public debates in newspapers and parliaments fast became rife with complaints of 'oppressive monopolies’ with a stranglehold over public safety and urban development. In response, municipalities across Europe began to mandate that private gas companies be taken into local authority ownership after a set number of years. This was to ensure safety, standardisation and protection of the public.
In contrast to Britain and Europe, Ireland was blocked from doing the same, suffering the common fate of colonies and their public infrastructures. The majority of Irish people had no access to power - gas or electric - outside of factory work and depended on hand-cut turf for light and heat. Even the well-off in Irish urban areas found themselves at the mercy of low quality service and monopolies, with public representatives blocked from taking greater control of energy.
Solutions to abuse began to coalesce around more public ownership of a new technology: electrification. When Dublin Corporation sought to follow the rest of Europe in municipalising electricity, the act was viewed as a precursor to Home Rule and strenuously opposed by loyalists and unionists. In 1900, loyalists and unionists introduced the Dublin Electric Lighting Bill (by Order) in the House of Commons which sought to roll back Dublin Corporation’s municipal control of electricity by re-opening it to private competition.
The desire for energy be in more public ownership was a foundational aspect of the new young Irish state. One of the first pieces of legislation passed by the Oireachtas was the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1927. This legislation established the Electricity Supply Board (ESB), nationalising the existing colonial mess of electricity companies, random wires and connections.
The ESB was controlled by democratic oversight over its direction, but with the competency, independence and command over complex interlocking systems to achieve those aims. Through this, the ESB delivered universal affordable access to electricity and regional employment. Its rural electrification scheme meant the most lonely mountains and dusky hills of Conamara now glittered with specks of light in the early winter dark.
Ireland’s energy system now faces an existential challenge. Fossil fuels are the single greatest contributor to climate change. We must completely shift the country’s transport, heating and power from oil and gas to energy efficiency and renewables. Widespread clean electrification is one of the best means of doing so.
But these aims are not well served by voluntarily re-instituting the broken, disjointed approach to energy infrastructure that colonised countries have historically been forced to endure. Instead we need greater democratic control over the energy system; mandating reductions in energy use by our biggest polluters, and requiring their contribution to the changes in the electricity grid. Let’s not unravel the ESB, but re-invigorate the principles it was established with in 1927, newly founded on purposes of ecological public good and value.
This article previously appeared on RTÉ Brainstorm. Click here to read the full article.
Sinéad Mercier is a lecturer and PhD Researcher at the UCD Sutherland School of Law, funded as part of the PROPERTY [IN]JUSTICE project: https://www.landlawandjustice.eu/ (European Research Council funded project 2020-2025) led by Dr. Amy Strecker. Her PhD focuses on the development of international energy law in Ireland and its clashes with local planning.