Gas price difference totally 'ridiculous'

The Enterprise Department said the cost difference arose because gas company Firmus did not face competition when prices were set, unlike in Belfast.

But the committee chair Alban Maginness said Northern Ireland was too small to have such a price differential.

He is to raise the issue with the utility regulator and the department.

His fellow committee member, Gregory Campbell, said Firmus Energy customers were paying "higher costs outside of the greater Belfast area for the same product, by the same company, than they are in the greater Belfast area".

He added: "We need to say to the department how quickly do they intend to rectify that? How quickly do they intend to introduce competition across all of Northern Ireland, so that all gas consumers are paying the same price?"

Mr Campbell said his understanding was that customers outside Belfast were paying 5% more for gas but added that it was "not a make or break differential".

In March 2005, Firmus Energy was formally awarded supply and distribution licenses for the development of a natural gas network in ten towns and cities outside of Belfast.

They included; Londonderry, Limavady, Coleraine, Ballymoney, Ballymena, Antrim, Craigavon, Armagh, Banbridge and Newry.