Financial help - No excuse for ESB’s credit rate

It is unacceptable that the ESB, a semi-State body, should be responsible for financial hardship inflicted on people who, through circumstances, are forced to get basic household equipment on the company’s expensive credit scheme.

Charging a rate of 22.9% interest on items such fridges and cookers is exorbitant, and is just fractionally under the rate charged by money lenders.

That - combined with the cost of electricity - is causing extreme financial problems for many of the country’s less well-off trying to exist on minimal household budgets.

While the company has to be commercially and economically viable, its balance sheet should not swelled by poor customers driven to buy essential kitchen goods through its excessively costly hire-purchase rates.

Helping people to get out of the clutches of unconscionable money lenders is the reason why the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) exists, but nowadays even customers who cannot cope with the burden of their ESB commitments are resorting to it.

This nationwide service, funded by the Department of Social Affairs, is to help people cope with debt and to take control of their own finances.

Yesterday, Social Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan very aptly described MABS as a “beacon of light”, when he launched a new resource pack for money advisors and facilitators.

Since it was established 10 years ago, the service has done invaluable work in helping people sort themselves out financially. An indication of how effective it is can be measured by the fact that it deals with 30,000 clients on an on-going basis, and 16,000 new clients approach it annually for help.