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MINISTER FOR ENTERPRISE Simon Coveney has said “an explanation is needed” from Electric Ireland as to why it is reducing bills for businesses but not for household customers.
The energy provider confirmed yesterday that an average decrease of 10% will take effect on electricity bills for small and medium enterprises from Wednesday, while gas bills will see a decrease of 15%.
However, no similar cut has been confirmed for its household customers.
In a statement to The Journal, a spokesperson for Electric Ireland said it intends to keep its prices under review and that reductions in wholesale costs can take some time to have a knock-on effect for residential customers.
“Electric Ireland will continue to keep its prices under constant review, and is committed to providing customers with the best value possible across a broad range of products. As of 1 February 2023, Electric Ireland offers the lowest Estimated Annual Bill for electricity on the market,” it said.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Coveney said that Electric Ireland need to answer questions as to why they are taking that approach.
“Of course, it’s welcome for businesses that electricity prices are going down by 10% and gas prices by 15%, but I think many households listening to that story yesterday on the radio will be asking themselves the question: ‘why isn’t that applying to my bill?’ And I think that is a fair question to answer,” he said.
Coveney said that Minister Michael McGraw “was correct yesterday when he said that I think consumers and households would have a legitimate expectation now that the same would apply to them”.
He said that as wholesale prices for gas have fallen significantly, “we want to see households benefiting from that change in market reality”.
“We want to see it changing quickly because when wholesale prices increase, the increases seem to happen quickly for households and for businesses, and so likewise, when wholesale prices fall, we want to see the benefits of that as quickly as possible.”
Coveney said that both households and businesses have had “a tough winter, and if it hadn’t been for Government support, it would have been even tougher”.
“So of course, we want to see households benefiting from reduced electricity prices when the market allows for that and I think there’s an explanation needed as to how an energy company can reduce for businesses but not for households.”
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Not going to get a straight answer from them & anyway never mind about the 10% when are we going to see the rest fall back to where it was in jan 2022. They were still making plenty of profit and still gouging us but at least we had a chance of paying it. Electric Ireland have been putting their hands in our pockets for years it’s about time we cut it off. Some of us need electricity for water that’s the sad part of it. They don’t seem to understand that we have other bills to pay. They can’t come first every time. Most of us live pay-check to pay-check. We pay bills as we go, some months you just have to sit back and be quiet because we just don’t physically have the money to give you. And no amount of texts, phone calls and nasty letters will get you the money any faster.
Show me any other necessity of life that is subject to the whims of big business like the electricity supply. It should be protected like water is. Or at least the government should give a 100% grant to fit solar PV panels. The way it is now you have to have the cash to pay for it before you can get them. I don’t know about you lot but I don’t have a spare €15 never mind a spare €15,000-€20,000
@Colm O’Leary: Your smart phone and the price of pints.
@Don Hogan: Why do you presume to know other peoples circumstances? So many are struggling, lucky you if you are not one of them.
@Don Hogan: I don’t know what the price of pints has to do with anything I don’t drink and I haven’t been out to a pub in 5 years and my smartphone is the most basic model, I upgrade only when my old phone dies which is what happened to my last phone. An old iPhone 5 I kept it going long after apple had stopped supporting it.. so if your implying I’m living high on the hog then I’m not. I’m barely scraping by.
This is crazy, this is how we’re driving young people and not only young people just the population out of this country. The big companies are skyrocketing prices and giving us no hope. Record profits year on year, draining our pockets and filling theirs.
So we can read the usual nonsense rhetoric reply….why bother??
I would but had no electricity all morning can’t change my phone still get the bill on time
Bring the whole energy sector into public ownership, then each year have a price increase equal or less than CPI %. No complaints about price gouging then.
You are in government. You have the power to do something about it. You are more than well paid by the people of this country so do something for them for a change instead of just talking about it.
The business sector was hit with hikes before the residential. In June 22 i was paying on a retail unit 55c per unit. From an initial 21c when i had opened the account the July before COVID. I believe it’s fair they reduce it as the price hikes closed us down.. if it returns to normal we wight return as well ..
have your say