Why do the poor pay so much more than the rich?

The column below appears in this week's INM Irish regional newspapers.

Michael Commane

I received notification from my television/broadband/telephone provider that they were increasing their monthly rates.

A few days passed and I decided to call them. You need plenty of free time and a good disposition before you phone any of these companies as calls can go on and on. Eventually I get through to a human voice and after the best part of 25 minutes of haggling a deal is struck. Guess what? I end up with a new contract lasting for a year that works out cheaper than what I was paying for the previous 12 months. It’s a great feeling of victory.

I was telling my story to a colleague, and he told me he had done something similar with his electricity provider.

I was back on the phone, again, that interminable wait and all those prompts that eventually might lead you to a human voice. Great, I’m through again and after five or six minutes I manage to get a two per cent and six per cent cut on my bills. The deal will last a year.

Did you know that when you do these sorts of deals they usually run out at the end of a year and you then go back to paying top dollar. The facilities don’t inform you that the deal is over and that you are back paying full rates. It’s up to you to get on to them.

Okay we might be talking small sums of money: two percent on a €70 two-monthly electricity bill works out at a saving of €8.40 in the year.

Every cent matters and people with large electricity and gas bills can save a significant sum of money. But if a phone call from an insignificant customer can save a few cent what at all must it be like for the big consumers?

This sort of haggling and the possibility of one person haggling better than another does lead one into a very strange world indeed. Take for instance what Oliver Tatton is doing with his 'Big Switch' operation. He goes along to a utility tells them he has 40,000 customers, so he buys power from the utility cheaper, the customer pays less and Oliver Tatton takes a cut.

You might well ask is there need for a middle man, why can't the utility companies sell their product at a universal price. And then there is the pre-pay scheme whereby a company installs a meter, which allows the customer to pay as they go. They pay a small fee for the meter but pay top dollar for their electricity or gas usage. And here too the middle man charges the customer one price for gas or electricity but buys it from the utility at a cheaper rate. Of course the people who avail of this system are those with the least disposable income.

Is there not something terribly wrong with a system that always and ever treats those with money and power in a preferential way to those who are struggling and on the margins? There are deeper issues as well about the use of fossil fuels and our environment and the morality/ethics of how we relate to the goods of the world.

I for one, don't hear too many people from the churches talk out loudly and vociferously on these issues. They seem to hold their fire for other matters. When have you last seen large groups of church followers criticising or condemning how we are damaging our environment and in so doing making sure the poorest of the poor pay far more than the rich and powerful?