ESB chief executive Padraig McManus has said the ESB should be free to charge whatever it likes.
Speaking at the MacGill Summer School, he said he knew this would take a little time, but in the next year or so he hopes it happens.
He was reacting to comments made by Fine Gael Energy spokesperson Simon Coveney, who said it is ridiculous that Bord Gáis and Airtricity are offering households significantly cheaper electricity than the ESB.
Mr Coveney said the other companies are 10% to15% cheaper, yet the ESB is not allowed by the Commission for Energy Regulation [CER] to reduce their prices to compete.
Mr Coveney said the Regulator is keeping ESB prices artificially high and the reason given is that Bord Gáis and Airtricity need to be allowed to get a sizeable foothold in the market before the ESB are allowed to compete on this price.
Mr Coveney added that this means that consumers are paying too much for their ESB bills as a result.
Mr McManus said from an ESB perspective, as opposed to a state sector perspective, that if the ESB is going to have the freedom to price properly in the market, and not be fixed to a particular price, then they have to accept that they would lose a big block of domestic customers.
Mr McManus added that said it would be beneficial of the ESB to drop tax because it is 13.5%, whereas in the UK it is 5%. He was talking about tax on the domestic rates.
Earlier, he said a rise in domestic electricity prices to help drive down energy costs in the industrial sector has not been ruled out by the ESB.
He was reacting to recent calls for increases in prices for households to bring down prices for industry in order to help jobs.
Mr McManus said such pricing moves would not happen this year, but would have to be looked at over an extended period of time. He highlighted the need to be more protective of the industrial job creation sector.
Mr McManus added that in the 1990s the ESB skewed its tariffs towards the industrial sector - keeping them at their lowest possible level - so that it could help the industrial sector and job creation sector.
He said the problem in Ireland was that industrial electricity prices were way above the European average.
