ESB trade unions are opposing the State company's plans to close four power plants over the next three years, writes Barry O'Halloran.

As part of a deal with the energy regulator that will allow it to build a new power station in Aghada, Cork Harbour, the ESB has to close power stations with a total capacity of 1,300 megawatts by 2010.

It announced yesterday that it intended closing parts of the Marina plant in Cork and Poolbeg in Dublin, as well as Great Island in Wexford and Tarbert in Kerry, a capacity of 1,294 megawatts.

The closures will lead to the loss of 300 jobs across the four facilities, but the company's unions are not going to support the move unless the Government changes its plan to break up the ESB. In the past the ESB has managed job losses through voluntary redundancies or redeployment.

The unions are opposed to this plan which is outlined in a White Paper published by the Government last March.

Chairman of the ESB group of unions Davey Naughton of the Technical, Electrical and Engineering Union (TEEU), said that it had not had any talks with the company about job losses and which plants should be closed as a result of the deal with the regulator.

"We never even got into that space," he said. "Any discussions about this have be held within the broader context of the White Paper."

John Ryder, assistant regional industrial organiser with the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union (ATGWU), said his members were "shocked and dismayed" by the proposed closures and job losses.

Mr Ryder said that the union saw this as the first step in the implementation of the White Paper proposals and added that the ATGWU was opposed to any such move.

He also argued that the fact that the ESB's competitors had first refusal on the sites meant that the company was essentially being forced to accommodate its commercial rivals. "This could bankrupt the ESB," he said.

The Bill proposes moving the ownership of the national grid - which transmits electricity from power stations to the distribution network - to a new State company.

Currently the ESB owns the grid, but it is managed by an independent body, Eirgrid. The transfer is designed to facilitate the entry of new players to the market.

The closure of the four plants has to be timed to allow new facilities to come on stream. Work has started on the new Aghada plant while Viridian's second plant at its Huntstown site in Co Dublin is due to start producing electricity at the end of this year.

An Bord Gáis is also planning to build a power plant.

However, Mr Naughton argued that these new facilities would only replace 1,200 megawatts while the Republic would lose 1,300 megawatts. At the same time, demand for electricity was growing at 3.5 per cent a year.

"There could be issues with security of supply," he warned. The plants supply about 25 per cent of the power used in the Irish market.

An ESB spokesman explained that the four power plants would have been closed and replaced by the beginning of the decade. However, the regulator would not allow the company to build new facilities in order to allow independent players to get established here.

As a result, it had to maintain them to guarantee power supplies in the interim.