who generates the other 53%?

Bord Gais, Viridian, Endessa, SSE and a couple of others.

Airtricity, Synergen , Edenderry Power, Endesa-Ireland and Huntstown (Viridian) and countless wind generation operators who get first priority on the grid.
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twas said in haste i stand corrected! however i disagree that wind operators get first priority on the grid any wind turbine i know of that wasn’t part of a large scale wind farm (with money and people power) had awful trouble getting onto the grid, i know one that had to fight for over a year! reason being that they cause big disruption in the supply! the bigger generators dont want them on the grid. thats not to mention the fact that they are not as reliable as they are made out to be!

He meant priority dispatch, not priority connection to the grid.

Younger staff on new and less expensive terms of contract freshens things up. There’ll be unbelievable redundancy packages on offer that won’t be to the entire public’s taste however. But in the long run it’s all good really.

I can’t find any evidence of this massive recruitment drive. There’s nothing really apart from their usual graduate program.

Yippee!!

Big Fat Redundancies and Pension payouts all round!!

There is certainly no massive recruitment under way. I checked and apart from the usual apprentice scheme and summer student place (half the number of last year) there is no recruitment. Where did you get that from?

Best paid van drivers on the planet, I’d say!

Yep and the other side of that is (from the Irish times in january) is that the ESB is 5 times bigger than any other state utilities company. compartive figures are (approx) bord gais 1000 esb 6000.

Wrong. ESB was forced to reduce its holding in the generation sector as it was in the retail markets. Bord Gais has its own plant. Vridian and Endessa are in the game and there are other independent power producers such as Edenderry power and the wind farms. ESB still have a significant holding though. Generators are forced to bid their marginal into the regulated market. This market was designed to be robust to the market power of any one company.

Any company is free to buy from that market, at the same price. Some of them hedge their risk better than others, but ultimately they pay the same at the market. If you have information which shows that ESB are gaming the market or are acting in cartel with other generators forward that information to the market monitoring unit of the commission for energy regulation. Otherwise, keep your sweeping statements to yourself.

good question. will find out.

You can look at the staff numbers in the latest (2010) report here: http://www.esb.ie/main/about-esb/ESB-AR-Web-2010.pdf

Total staff numbers (inc. ESBI) were at 6911 at the end of 2010 so the number of around 6000 today seems like it should be accurate enough.

What a ridiculously simplistic comment. Doesn’t matter if they can do the job or not obviously. How many of you will be willing to take a 50% pay cut. The only people working in the esb are van drivers and unskilled workers. No I do not work for ESB I am just sick of the trite simplistic comments

Haha that’s one of the most begrudging posts I’ve ever seen…. Maybe your mates parents worked hard for their wealth..???

Where did you see this 17.5% increase? And of course there would be no prd they have a self and company funded private pension scheme and don’t get paid by the state at all. Obviously your a bit confused by the operation of this semi state.