Cork North Central Workers’ Party candidate, Cllr. Ted Tynan has said that his canvassing team is coming across a significant number of family homes which have been disconnected by the ESB recently and he has described the electricity supplier’s actions as “callous and uncaring commerciality”.
Cllr. Tynan was speaking this morning (Sunday) after a meeting of Workers’ Party canvassers in Gurranabraher. He said that several of his team had reported coming across families whose electricity supply had been cut off because of problems paying off large bills that had been accumulated during the recent and ongoing cold weather.
“People do not risk having their electricity supply disconnected unless they are in dire trouble with their family finances”, said Cllr. Tynan. “As the ESB is being prepared by the government for eventual privatisation, the company is becoming more and more uncaring and purely commercial decisions are being taken with little consideration for the consequences these will have on families who will go without heat, light and cooking as a result”, he said.
Cllr. Tynan said that the ESB’s decision to spend €8 million this year on changing its name to ‘Electric Ireland” should be scrapped and the money allocated instead to a hardship fund for customers who are genuinely in trouble with their accounts.
