Minister Simon Coveney has called on Electric Ireland to answer questions as to why household are not receiving the same reduction as has been announced for business customers.
A 10% reduction in electricity tariffs for small and medium businesses from next month has been announced by the company, while gas prices will fall some 15% on average.
Decreasing wholesale energy prices are driving that reduction, business customers were told by Electric Ireland.
However, no such decreases are being made available to households – with significant numbers of people struggling to meet electricity bills which have risen sharply over the winter months.
The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment has told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that household customers were right to question Electric Ireland.
“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 that is a fair question to answer,” he said.
He referenced Minister Michael McGrath who had said “consumers and households would have a legitimate expectation now that the same would apply to them”.
He said that households should also benefit from the significant fall in wholesale prices for gas.
“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,” Mr Coveney said.
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