This article is from page 31 of the 2007-05-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 31 JPG
THE HUGE cost of gas bills to peo- ple living in local authority homes has to be tackled, Shannon council- lors have warned.
Councillor Tony Mulcachy called for alternative heating systems to be used in council homes in the future after hearing from Shannon residents who are “being savaged” by bills of €200 a month and up- wards.
Speaking at a meeting of Shannon town councillors, that by virtue of qualifying for local authority hous- ing “many of these people are on low incomes. They are being cru- cified, seriously struggling to pay these bills. As the local authority which built these houses, we have to come up with ways to ease this”.
He called for the council to con- sider using alternative heating sys- tems such as wood-chip boilers or solar energy in homes which are
built in the future.
Councillor Patricia McCarthy said that in older estates, heating systems were of the dual variety, where a fire could be lit and backboilers used to heat the home.
“When natural gas came along, people were told it was a cheap al- ternative to oil and they assumed that was the case. People assumed that the price of oil was going up, but they didn’t necessarily realise that so was the price of gas. People
need to be educated in the most eco- nomic and efficient use of the gas systems,’ she said.
Town manager Ger Dollard said that with the publication last week of the national energy strategy, lo- cal authorities will be funded to provide energy efficient homes.
He added that the current thinking in designing local authority homes is towards making use of energy sources such as solar power to bring down the cost of energy bills.