Cowen calls on State to sell off ESB

Barry Cowen says the State should 'sell the company off and use the money to power our move into offshore wind'. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Former agriculture minister Barry Cowen has called on the State to sell off ESB.

Mr Cowen's claims that the ESB overcharged customers and businesses to the tune of €250m over three months — revealed in the Irish Examiner  last week  — have been referred to European authorities.

The Fianna Fáil TD for Offaly sent documents supporting his claims to the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, and European Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson.

Mr Cowen claims the company’s wholesale prices added €250m to customers’ electricity bills between July and September last year, allowing it to make “super-profits”.

Speaking in the Dáil on Thursday, Mr Cowen reiterated that he had "decided to take these ESB and regulatory issues to the European Union for a State aid investigation, plus to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission for an investigation of the ESB’s price hikes for householders", saying that electricity bills were imposing excessive costs and burdens on households.

"We should also sell the company off and use the money to power our move into offshore wind and other industries for a green future," he said. 

Staff and other interested parties should be allowed to participate in the sale proceeds but the bulk must be used to invest in the future and in ensuring we have a functioning energy market."

"In recent years, as a State, we have proved unable to oversee the ESB," Mr Cowen said, claiming Government have not been able to supervise ESB nor regulate it properly.

"We have also failed in developing new forms of energy supply.

"At this point in time, as EU regulation will ensure a functioning company and market for the consumer, I do not believe it is in the State’s interest to continue to own the ESB.

It has served a useful purpose over the decades and has been an asset for the State. But the time has come to have a debate on its ownership."

The former minister said the State has often been "a pointless owner of assets, and a terrible shareholder. 

"It also has not been able to supervise the companies it owns, either lacking the technical people to see what its businesses were doing or the powers to curb them," he said.

"Ownership is no longer the key determinant of how dominant companies operate, it is proper regulation that the EU will now insist on."

The ESB has refuted allegations that it profited from last year’s electricity supply squeeze and that it kept bids for cash supports to build power plants deliberately low to deter likely rivals from entering the Irish market. 

The company has said it has written to the TD saying he should forward to regulators material that proves his claims.