No electricity price increases will be imposed on customers before the end of the year, the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, said yesterday. This is because the ESB's anticipated profits in the three years to the end of 1999 would be between £150 million and £200 million above expectations.

Ms O'Rourke said the Cabinet had approved her recommendation - which runs counter to an earlier agreement between the ESB, trade unions and the Government - because it would be unwise and unjustified to impose extra costs on the consumer. "Why would you heap costs on a consumer when it is unjustified?" she asked, speaking to The Irish Times yesterday.

An average across-the-board 3 per cent rise, amounting to about £30 million to the ESB in revenues, was expected to be introduced this year under the ESB's tripartite cost and competitiveness review (CCR) agreement with the Government and the ESB unions. However, the expected rise would have been 5 per cent for domestic users, who would have faced a higher increase under a plan to "rebalance" tariffs by charging customers more and business less.

No comment was made by the ESB yesterday. The company introduced a general 2 per cent rise in 1996, and a 1.5 per cent increase last year, providing revenue which the ESB is seeking to use in its £1.3 billion network renewal plan. Last year the ESB made an after-tax profit of £160 million on a turnover of £1.19 billion. About £1 billion of this represents revenue from electricity sales. Mr Denis Rohan, of the ATGWU, the union representing the largest number of ESB employees, asked yesterday whether the Government's refusal to sanction the 3 per cent increase nullified the CCR agreement.

"There is little value of entering into an agreement if one side can unilaterally withdraw or fail to implement their side of that agreement," he said. Ms O'Rourke said she had no comment to make on the issue.

A spokeswoman for the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) welcomed the Minister's price freeze, saying it was an important anti-inflationary measure. However, she said the issue of tariff balancing would need to be examined. Last week the Small Firms Association, an IBEC member, called for the appointing of an ombudsman as part of the deregulation process, and tariff rebalancing. IBEC claims that the industrial sector is subsidising domestic electricity users by about 10 per cent.