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Seamus Sherlock campaigns against ESB |
Seamus is unemployed and has a family to support. The total bill outstanding was €€2,261. Seamus borrowed more than 1,100 euro from family and friends to pay off half the debt in a lump sum. He then offered to use 50 euro a week from his 196 euro social welfare to cover the rest of the bill.
Instead the ESB wanted €150 euro a week even though Seamus only receives €196 a week. Then they came out and warned him they would cut him off and added an extra €97 to his bill for the warning.
About 900 people a month are having their electricity cut off by ESB. Bord Gáis is disconnecting another 120 a month. Over a thousand people a month being cut off.
Its going to get worse the Public Service Obligation is going up by about 5%, even more for small businesses, shortly. Then in December will we see the squeeze from the other end - will the dole be cut, other living allowances reduced thereby reducing further the ability of people to pay. Tie in the likely sustained increase in food prices and its clear how serious the situation is going to be for households.
The ESB made half a billion in profits last year. Nobody is asking for free electricity. Whats needed is for the ESB to work with people to manage the repayment of debts rather than steamrolling over them in a bureaucratic way.
Fianna Fail and the Greens have failed to guarantee clean drinking water in Galway, adequate flood defences across the country, failed to provide salted roads in winter and now to top it off we have sections of communities being blacked out.
And somehow out of that mess they'd have you believe we can establish a cutting edge knowledge economy.
Check out the video on the at the new An Phoblacht YouTube channel
The ESB actions are disgraceful, the increases will have a detrimental affect on both the Working and Middle Classes in this country. It will affect the elderly even more severely, and will be responsible for deaths and further health problems in elderly people who will fear their bills.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans MUST be active on this issue, it is imperative, as it is RELEVANT to the community and is something everyone can understand. We must be in the front lines along with people like Seamus when the bureaucrats try to take the hatchet to people.