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OVER 15,000 GAS and electricity customers in Ireland were disconnected last year for non-payment, far less than previous years.
New stats from the Commission for Energy Regulation show that in 2013 there were 10,122 electricity disconnections and 5,895 gas disconnections. Both these figures are down from 14,650 and 7,006 respectively in 2012.
The CER say that there are a number of reasons for the drop in disconnections, these include the increased roll-out by suppliers of pay-as-you-go payment options and adherence to steps required before a disconnection.
In an attempt to reduce disconnections further, the CER and the industry companies reviewed the disconnection process in January of this year, during which time customers could not be cut-off.
Disconnections resumed in February 2014 and there were 207 domestic electricity disconnections that month.
The CER say that anecdotal evidence suggests that a significant number of disconnected properties are in fact vacant.
Ar present the companies only determine if a building is vacant by judging how long it takes for the customer to reconnect the service.
In electricity if a site is not reconnected within 5 weeks, it is considered to be vacant. The same determination is made after six months in the case of gas.
This is set to change however:
“ESB Network and Bord Gáis Networks are introducing a new process by which deemed vacant sites will be identified during the disconnection process by the network technician that visits the site,” the CER say in their information paper on disconnections.
Both networks introduced this process at the beginning of March 2014 and the next disconnection Report to be published in April will identify the proportion of disconnected sites that were deemed to be vacant in March.
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Always make some atte!mpt to pay something, and explain your situation to them. Worst thing u can do is not engage them and try to ignore it.
Loads of small ways to save a lot online if u look it up I saved a fortune just turning things off instead of leaving them on standby which uses much of power it does when on full.
Turning stuff off at the plug is seriously important,
I’ve a energy monitor so I’ve tested a few things around the house,
One example if my PC, if I leave it turned on at the plug socket but not actually switched on it’ll cost me 30 euro a year. 30 euro a year!
Its important to switch microwaves, computers, tv’s etc etc off at the plug socket if you really want to save money.
Spot on there Ryan & Martin. Standby will add scores of €€€€ to an annual bill. If ur struggling to make ends meet try to pay 75% of what’s due. If that’s not possible contact them – I know from experience that they are quite approachable and reasonable.
That pic is of a phone pole not an ESB one
Also if you have international phone and television in your house purchase bundles specially from sky some of their packages include free internet not max speed but it’s freeand I’m still able to do torrents etc
Another great tip is ask ur company instead of setting up a direct debit ask them to continually re bill your Visa debit number as. The advantage of this is that if it ever bounces back because there’s no money in the account you will not get that 1275 direct debit charge which serves to put you further into the red.
Theres no point in changing your electricity company roomates did that last year it was same god damm prce turns out none of them are cheaper than esb it’s all about your actual usage.
For transport stop buying paper tickets now that leap capping is in you will never need to spend more than certain amount. For example to get a dart luas bus combi ticket (yes they exist as do dart luas tickets) it cost 200 euros a month for an adult. But if you use your leap card its its capped to never let you spend more than €120 a month, 40 a week or 10a day across all services. So that basically means the de facto electronic tickets for all three services is half the price of the official paper ticket for the same services.
Once you exceed the cap you’d still need to tag on and off but €0.00 will b what comes up n you’ve unlimited travel after that.
“Over 15,000 gas and electricity customers disconnected”
Shows picture of man up telephone pole.
Bad luck Brian must work for the journal. And write all the articles.
My mother in law is 87, has dementia and we pay her bills from the states. In years before, the gas company would automatically debit the credit card for the bill but they changed policy. When this happened, I called and explained the situation to them, and they assured me that the gas would never be cut off.
Well, last year, the home help called us and said that there was a letter from the gas company saying it was going to cut off the gas. My husband called them straight away and paid the bill.
They still cut the gas off, even though it was paid 4 days before the cut off day. My husband called them and they said there was a 60 euro charge to put it back on, even though it was paid before the cut off date and they had absolutely no sympathy.They obviously had no history of my conversation either.She was out of heat and hot water for 4 days, alone, 87 and with dementia. Really Bord Gas ; is this the best you can do!!! Can you tell I am still furious.
That’s another thing, with these providers, if someone misses payments and is really stuck for cash how is penalising them to put the service back going to help the person, I mean it costs nothing for them to flick a switch or push a button to cut you off but fifty or sixty yo yo’s to reconnect you, a joke, totally getting robbed blind in this country totally unsustainable trying to live here
Please report this to the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) here… info@cer.ie
Tell them what happened and lodge a formal complaint. Probably no harm to cc the minister for energy also (http://www.patrabbitte.ie/) to follow it up. Unless these incidents are formally reported nothing will change as the processes in place will continue.
Hope that helps and really hope the utilities learn from these mistakes.
Got in the gas meter at the start of the winter. I asked the supplier about it as I was in arrears and they said I would have to go on a waiting list, as soon as I mentioned I had a young family I was put on hold, once the agent returned I was told I would have one fitted the following week which happened promptly. Must say its been handy, made me see what I’m really spending and no bills. Only problem is its €180 to get it removed so that won’t be happening. Its mad to think a few years ago these bills(gas & electric) were very small payments now a days it like paying a second mortgage every few months
pay something to the vampires least u can show you paid a bit and try explain why you cant pay, the bloodsuckers in the energy sector have no morals when it comes to cutting people off yet have no problem hiking prices because we have the most useless energy regulator in history
Just people doing their job. The cost of energy has gone up globally. Renewables subsidies about half of 1%.
If eventually non-payment didn’t lead to people being cutoff nobody would ever pay. It’s about having fair systems.
Disconnections are down… Now people sit in the dark and cold because they have no money to put in the metre… But disconnections are down, this has a similar effect on the gas and electric company’s as jobsbridge has on the unemployment numbers.. Just glossing over the real problem…..
They’re both so expensive. They’ll be discussions in the dail today about exporting surplus energy to the UK. If there’s a f¥cking surplus they could at least drop the price a little.
The prices are affected by lots of factors beyond govts control. Right now the biggest thing driving fuel costs is the financial markets gambling with them in exotic commodities trades skimming cash off top of prices at pump. That used to b illegal, but lobbyists for banks donated to parties in EU and USA, and got bills passed removing those rules
Id rather spend the money and leave things on.
@ Martin, good tips there.
Even phone chargers (quite apart from the fire risk) cost money and it adds up.
And they expect people already struggling to now pay for water as well. Chase their election candidates away from your doorstep
If you get an estimated bill, read your meter and send it in immediately. Got a revised bill a month ago with €70 reduction.
Money that could be spent on something else.
We changed to prepay power last year! I know its not cheaper but being able to watch the credit helps I plan certain days for wash loads ect immersion is only used in an emergency our bill before was 270e a month now its 200!
thats a good saving julie , you can get the same meter from the other suppliers dose the exactly same thing but you dont have to pay the extra 237 euro a year to prepaypower but you have to be behind in ur bills to get one.
God that’s alot, That’s like all of Longford Town being cut off but of course that’s not true because there’s no electricity to cut off in Longford.
If you want to make a real saving DO NOT USE pre-paid meters. These add over 15% to the price of your bills. Best thing to do is buy some IKEA LED lights at €5 each.
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