ESB WORKERS are not prepared to enter talks on plans to cut payroll costs by €140 million unless they get a guarantee that the Government will not break up the State-owned energy company.

The ESB has confirmed its intention to reduce the payroll by 20 per cent over four to five years and recently informed staff of its objective. The move is designed to lessen the impact of lost customers to its rivals.

The group of unions at the company said at the weekend that it has not had talks on the proposal with management and will not do so until a commitment is forthcoming that the energy firm will not be broken up.

The Government is considering transferring ownership of the Republic’s national grid – which transmits electricity from power plants to the distribution network that delivers it to customers – from the ESB to State agency Eirgrid, which manages it.

Group of unions secretary Brendan Ogle said workers might be willing to enter discussions on reducing payroll costs, but would not do so if the Government goes ahead with the proposal to split the business.

“There will not be a process on this issue if they are simply trying to make savings on staff costs before they transfer them to Eirgrid,” he said.

Mr Ogle said that the plan to transfer assets “dwarfed” any other challenge facing the company and warned that its unions were opposed to any such move.

The ESB’s group of unions has consistently opposed the plan since it was first proposed by a Fianna Fáil-led administration in early 2007. Late last year, Mr Ogle said that unions would take industrial action if the Government attempted to proceed with it.

The ESB said the payroll savings are designed to prepare the firm to take on its competition, to which it has lost 800,000 residential and business customers over the last few years.

However, Mr Ogle argued that this was not the fault of either the staff or the company. He pointed out that the State’s Commission for Energy Regulation had effectively barred the company from competing in the first place to open up the market.

“They have allowed themselves to be put in a position where they are not competing at all,” he said.

Mr Ogle added that the regulation meant the ESB had to sit back while competitors such as Bord Gáis and independent operator Airtricity took customers from the energy firm at the rate of 7,000 per week.

“It’s something akin to assisted suicide,” he added.