€850m profit ESB told: Help your customers

Minister will force utility to act if windfall doesn't trickle down

- FERGHAL BLANEY

ESB must pass on some of its record € 850 million profits to cash-strapped customers struggling to pay for their energy costs, a Government minister has said. 

European Affairs Minister Peter Burke said the supplier must let their cash windfall “trickle down” to help their customers pay their soaring bills.

If the utility does not act, Mr Burke said the Government would make it.

The minister was speaking the day after ESB revealed that 2022 was its most profitable year ever.

However, it was also the year when their domestic customers were hit with an unprecedented coat of living crisis.