Unions are claiming a review of the electricity grid is breaking a deal made in 2000, writes BARRY O'HALLORAN.

THE MINISTER for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan, is facing a row with ESB workers that could lead to the lights going out.

Last week, Fergus Cahill, former Irish National Petroleum Corporation (INPC) chief executive, began chairing talks over a two-year-old proposal to transfer ownership of the national electricity grid from ESB to another State agency, Eirgrid, which currently manages it.

The split was proposed two years ago in a White Paper, and is supposed to boost competition in the market. The grid is a key piece of infrastructure because it gets electricity from generators to the people who use it.

It also holds the key to policies that are close to Ryan’s heart. It is going to be redeveloped at a cost of up to €6 billion over the next decade. Part of this will involve reshaping it to carry a lot more renewable energy.

The review of its future was barely under way last Friday when the ESB group of unions, which represents the bulk of the State company’s staff, walked out.

It has subsequently emerged that the board of the ESB’s employee share ownership plan (Esop) will not take part until the Minister clarifies a number of matters, including Cahill’s terms of reference.

The Esop also argues that as a shareholder, it should have been consulted before Cahill’s appointment.

The unions say the review breaks a three-way deal, dating back to 2000, under which the Government agreed that the ESB would not be broken up if the unions agreed to various measures that would open up the energy market, including subsequent job losses at the State company.

Unite official Brenda Ogle argues that the Minister has betrayed this agreement, because the review is treating the grid’s transfer as a done deal, and is geared at finding the best way of going about it, and not at examining any other alternatives.

“Last Friday, the Minister’s speech made it quite clear that this is Government policy and that it’s in the Programme for Government,” Ogle says.

However, Ogle adds that the unions believed the review would look at all the options.

The unions backed the sale last year of Tarbert and Great Island power plants to Spanish group, Endesa, which Ogle argues helped save jobs and secured €2 billion in investment.

The department pointed out this week that the review is designed to take into account all relevant views, including those of the unions and the Esop, and that this is still the intention.

Ogle is adamant that the Minister and Government have broken faith. “We have delivered exactly what we told them we would deliver, and now the Minister is trying to take away the central plank of our agreement,” he says. The unions have already said that they will take whatever action they believe is necessary to prevent this process continuing. This would logically include industrial action.

Ogle says he is not talking up industrial action, but says that this is far too important an issue for the unions to take lying down.

He does leave one chink of light: they are still prepared to engage in a process which they believe takes all options fully into account.